Stolze, Wilhelm

STENOGRAPHER (GERMANY)
BORN 20 May 1798, Berlin - DIED 8 Jan 1867, Berlin
BIRTH NAME Stolze, Heinrich August Wilhelm
GRAVE LOCATION Berlin: Dom-Friedhof I, Liesenstrasse 6 (Feld 3)

Wilhelm Stolze was the son of a shoemaker. He grew up in poor circumstances but he graduated from the Joachimsthal Gymnasium in Berlin. He had no money to enter university and found employment with the Berlin fire insurance company in 1817. In 1819 he started prepatory work for a new shorthand system. In 1835 he was able to leave his job and work as a teacher and a businessman.

From 1838 to 1840 he invented the first strictly scientifical system for shorthand in the German language. In 1841 the ministry of education awarded him a grant to publish his "Theoretisch-practischen Lehrbuchs der deutschen Stenographie für höhere Schulen und zum Selbstunterricht, nach einer neuen Methode, welche Kürze und Vollständigkeit der Bezeichnungen miteinander verbindet".

In 1844 he founded the first shorthand association in Berlin tohether with his followers Karl Gottlob Kressler and Agathon Jaquet. His "Anleitung zur deutschen Stenographie" (1845) sold over 10,000 copies in his lifetime. He died in Berlin in 1867.

Images

The grave of Wilhelm Stolze at the Dom Friedhof I, Liesenstrasse, Berlin.
Picture by androom (27 Mar 2007)

 

Sources
• Mende, Hans-Jürgen, Lexicon Berliner Grabstätten, Haude & Spener, 2006
Heinrich August Wilhelm Stolze - Wikipedia


Stomps, Louise

Published: 01 Dec 2018
Last update: 27 Jan 2022