In the 1950s, the pace of change was astonishing. Pundits agreed that 鈥渋mmense progress鈥� was being made: atomic energy, skyscrapers, electronic machines, potentially even space travel. Yet technological advance had its downside, and it looked as if penmanship was one of its early victims. Critics blamed the typewriter and the telephone, and forecast worse to come. But just how bad was this handwriting crisis? And was it possible to write well in the age of the ballpoint pen? In search of answers, Reginald Piggott, a calligrapher from Scotland, launched the world鈥檚 first national survey of handwriting in 1956.
WITH campaigning zeal, Reginald Piggott approached the media with his idea for a national handwriting survey. He needed samples of people鈥檚 writing 鈥� lots of them. Could they help? The Observer, along with a host of other newspapers, journals and and magazines, agreed to publicise his appeal. Piggott asked readers to send in specimens of their writing so that he could build up a representative picture of handwriting by people 鈥渋n all walks of life鈥�. Within weeks, well over 25,000 replies had arrived at his home in Glasgow, much to the consternation of his postman.
Unwittingly, Piggott had tapped into a rich seam of social anxiety. Thousands of people felt moved to pen long letters explaining how their handwriting had changed from the style they were taught at school into something quite different. What was their handwriting saying about them, they wondered? Everyone was torn between two conflicting social trends: obedience to authority and conformity to traditional expectations on the one hand, and the desire to express individual flair and creativity on the other. Piggott鈥檚 survey would reveal which side was winning.
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Many feared that individuality had already gone too far. Letters from parents and teachers worried about falling standards flooded through Piggott鈥檚 letter box. Earlier that year, school headmasters had held a 鈥渃ouncil of war鈥� on bad handwriting. Even the Post Office was preparing a rogues鈥� gallery: letters addressed in abysmal handwriting were to be publicly shamed at an exhibition at Charing Cross underground station. Piggott himself highlighted a case reported by the Medical and Dental Defence Union of Scotland in which 鈥渁 doctor鈥檚 handwriting was so bad that the word 鈥榣ittle鈥� was mistaken for 鈥榤iddle鈥� and a patient had his wrong finger amputated鈥�.
Handwriting had not always been so variable or so difficult to decipher. Over many centuries, religious manuscripts or legal documents had tended to look very similar. For professional clerks, legibility and conformity to the orthodox style were the thing. Speed was not a priority. Later, particular styles inculcated by writing masters became the mark of an educated person and a gentleman of leisure, making handwriting a heady signifier of social class as well. No wonder that by the 1950s, as breaches appeared in the class system, handwriting style had become a source of moral panic.
The next year, when the Scottish Committee for Research in Education urged a 鈥渃omplete change鈥� in the teaching of handwriting to encourage 鈥渁 fast, legible, utilitarian hand, suitable for everyday use鈥�, The Times leader writer couldn鈥檛 help sneering. 鈥淯tilitarian is an ugly word and suggests a character a little too practical and clerkly to be quite well bred鈥︹��
Intriguingly, Piggott decided to group his handwriting specimens by occupation 鈥� social status, thinly veiled. Not surprisingly, he found differences between the barrister and the labourer. But even within his 26 occupational categories, he uncovered a huge disparity in handwriting styles.
鈥淭he first ballpoint pen was patented in 1888, but success came only after the Hungarian Biro brothers launched their version with quick-drying ink in 1943鈥�
Copperplate, an elaborate and time-consuming style dating from the days of the quill pen and the burin of 18th-century engravers, was most prevalent among railway workers and drivers of lorries and buses. These men must have learned the laborious script at primary school, and never had to adapt it to the demands of 20th-century paperwork.
The most popular style was a round, cursive hand he called Civil Service: it was simpler than copperplate but still quite slow to write legibly. Lawyers and clerks of every variety were particularly keen on this style.
A minority taste, the italic hand, had been revived in the late 19th century by William Morris and his followers in the Arts and Crafts Movement. Artists were particularly likely to pen an italic hand, Piggott noted. 快猫短视频s, however, were almost equally divided between the Civil Service style and a motley assortment of non-joined and semi-joined scripts.
Writing implements were also of great interest to Piggott: the controversial ballpoint pen had become widely available a decade or so earlier. The majority of Piggott鈥檚 correspondents still used a fountain pen, but 15 per cent were ballpoint enthusiasts. The ballpoint was most likely to be used by entertainers, farmers and manual workers and least by lawyers, military men and students.
鈥淏y the 1950s handwriting style had become a source of moral panic鈥�
On legibility, Piggot鈥檚 letter-writers fared better than he expected. Only 9 per cent of the writing samples were almost impossible to decipher: most guilty of bad writing were artists, company directors, engineers and scientists. Farmers and travelling salesmen were generally only moderately legible, but 44 per cent of correspondents were judged to be fairly good, represented by the clergy, secretaries and teachers. Less than 10 per cent were completely legible, with military officers, typographers and manual workers top of the class.
Finally, Piggott investigated the vexed question of the colour of ink. Women favoured blue, he found, while men preferred the non-committal blue-black. Most of those who boldly opted for black were artists, architects, university lecturers, Catholic priests and upper-form grammar school boys. Brown ink made a showing among typographers, while ballet dancers and entertainers had a penchant for violet. Teachers and scientists favoured red. Green was the choice of lady novelists.
Throughout his research, published in 1958 as Handwriting, A National Survey, Piggott tried to accept that times were changing; after all, the very instruments of writing were undergoing a technological revolution. Yet, as a man of his age he believed in social planning. 鈥淚t is in our hands to preserve our national handwriting, to make it something of which we may be justly proud,鈥� he pronounced. What was needed was a good, legible modern handwriting in keeping with the country鈥檚 progress in so many other spheres of life. And the way to achieve it? With a fountain pen, medium nib and black ink.
Twenty years on, a host of nylon-tipped and plastic rollerpoint pens had joined the ballpoint, inspiring calligrapher Christopher Jarman to remark that to insist on a fountain pen in 1979 was rather like demanding a goose quill. In the 1980s, a team at the University of Birmingham in the UK set out to chart a handwriting map of the country: they expected each region would have a distinctive style. Yet the map proved illusory. Diversity, not uniformity, was the rule.
Today, Piggott鈥檚 dream of a national handwriting style is further away than ever. Leading British practitioners of the art now argue that children should be able to choose the pens they like, and to experiment with ways of holding them and with styles so that they can learn to write legibly, comfortably and at a good speed with any instrument.
Across the UK, decisions about how to teach penmanship are left to individual schools or teachers. By contrast, younger nations have typically standardised handwriting in a bid to foster national unity and identity. In Australia and New Zealand teaching styles are relatively prescriptive, and in the US pupils still learn to form their letters in a way largely established in the 19th century, making their handwriting instantly recognisable.
To European eyes, Americans appear to write in a very similar style. Yet Americans鈥� hunger for individuality finds expression in a fascination with handwriting analysis, autograph collecting and fancy calligraphy. In a world swarming with impersonal print, handwriting grows ever more burdened with meaning, and is taken to reveal the inner self, with graphologists finding an eager audience in corporate personnel departments.
Even computers seem unlikely to make handwriting irrelevant. Researchers are racing to perfect technologies that will usher in a new generation of 鈥減en computing鈥�. By writing directly onto an LCD screen, users will be able to enter text and computer commands. Six thousand years on from its Sumerian origins, handwriting remains a human art form with a promising future.