Bengali, Marathi, Tamil, Chinese, Japanese, and Malagasy.
Pitman devoted much of his energy to the advancement of the spelling reform, and in 1844 he for the first time addressed his readers in phonotypy, or a phonetic printing alphabet, with a sufficient number of new letters to supply the deficiencies of the common alphabet. In the promotion of this movement he had for some years the assistance of Alexander John Ellis [q. v. Suppl.] The introduction of new types, although it made possible the use of a scientifically perfect alphabet, proved to be an insurmountable obstacle to the general adoption of phonetic printing, and after experiments with new types extending over forty years Pitman adopted, in 1883, with some additions, the rules recommended by the American Spelling Reform Association and the American Philological Society in order to secure the phonetic representation of the language without the addition of new letters to the alphabet. Another of Pitman's cherished schemes for the introduction of a duodecimal method of arithmetical notation, in substitution of the decimal numeration, also proved abortive.
From 1847 to 1855 the first Phonetic Institute in Albion Place, Bath, was the head-quarters of phonography and the spelling reform; the institute was removed to Parsonage Lane in 1855, to Kingston's Buildings in 1874, and finally to a new building in the suburbs of Bath in 1889.
The first International Congress and Jubilee of Phonography were jointly celebrated in London in 1887, under the presidency of the Earl of Rosebery. On this occasion a fine bust of Pitman, by Thomas Brock, was presented to him and his family. In 1889 a replica of this jubilee bust was presented to Pitman by the citizens of Bath, and it was placed in the Royal Literary and Scientific Institution of that city. On 18 July 1894 Pitman received the honour of knighthood 'at Windsor Castle, on the ground of his great services to stenography, and the immense utility of that art.'
Soon afterwards he retired from partnership with his sons, and conferred on them his interests in the phonographic text-books and other works of which he was the author. At the time of his retirement he had been uninterruptedly engaged in the work connected with his invention of phonography for fifty-seven years, and had edited the 'Phonetic Journal' for fifty-two years.
He died at Bath on 22 Jan. 1897, and in accordance with his wishes his remains were cremated at Woking. He was twice married, first, on 21 April 1861, to Isabella, daughter of James Masters, and left two sons. Alfred and Ernest. A mural tablet to his memory was unveiled on 15 July 1901 at 17 Royal Crescent, Bath, where Pitman resided in his later years.
[Information from Alfred Pitman, esq.; Biography by Thomas Allen Reed, with portraits, illustrations, and facsimiles, 1890; Life and Work of Pitman, 1894; Phonetic Journal, 1870, p. 98, 12 March 1887, and 6 Feb. 1897 (with portraits reproduced from the Strand Magazine); Sir Isaac Pitman's Phonography by Alfred Pitman, in French and English, Paris, 1900; Anderson's Catechism of Shorthand; Anderson's Hist. of Shorthand; Anderson's Shorthand Systems; Annual Register, 1897, Chron. p. 141; Callendar's Manual of Cursive Shorthand; Christian Age, 23 Feb. 1887; Gibons's Bibliography of Shorthand; Harper's Monthly, lx. 192; Levy's Hist. of Shorthand; Men and Women of the Time, 1895; Rockwell's Shorthand Instruction and Practice (Washington, 1893); Shorthand, a magazine; Transactions of the International Shorthand Congress, 1887; Vegetarian Messenger, May 1887.]
PITT-RIVERS, AUGUSTUS HENRY LANE FOX (1827–1900), lieutenant-general, anthropologist, and archæologist, son of William Augustus Lane Fox of Hope Hall, Yorkshire, and his wife Lady Caroline, daughter of John Douglas, eighteenth earl of Morton, was born on 14 April 1827. He was known by his father's surname of Lane Fox until 1880, when he assumed the name of Pitt-Rivers on eventually inheriting the estates of his great-uncle, George Pitt, second Baron Rivers (1751–1828). He was educated at Sandhurst Military College, and received a commission in the grenadier guards in 1845. His subsequent commissions were dated: captain 2 Aug. 1850, brevet-major 12 Dec. 1854, major 15 May 1857, lieutenant-colonel 22 Jan. 1867, major-general 1 Oct. 1877, lieutenant-general 1 Oct. 1882. He soon showed a talent for organisation and experimental research, which led to his being employed in investigations as to the use and improvement of the rifle in the early times of its introduction into the British army. These investigations were carried on by him at Woolwich, Enfield, Hythe, and Malta, between 1851 and 1857. He may be considered the originator of the Hythe school of musketry, of which he brought the first plans before Lord Hardinge, and for which he organised the system of practice and the education of musketry instructors. When stationed at Malta he had the duty of superintending the training of the troops in the new musketry practice, at the critical moment when his successful trials had led to
