I find that the first typewriter made its appearance in the year 1714, and was invented originally as a means of enabling blind persons to write.
Hence the modern method of touch typing is really nothing new. It was not, however, until 1856 that the typewriter came under general notice. In that year machines were introduced with printed embossed letters by Messrs. Beach and Foucault, but they were very clumsy and of little practical value.
Experiments were continued, and after twenty years Charles Sholes produced a machine for practical use. This was the first Remington, and it was put on the market by that firm in New York in the year 1874. Sir Alfred Yarrow, the famous inventor of the Yarrow tube for boilers, was the first English business man to acquire a typewriter, which he did after a visit to America in 1876.
He brought his purchase home, but there was no one in his employ who could use the machine, so he issued an advertisement for a "typist". As "typist" then would have conveyed nothing to readers, he framed his advertisement thus: "Wanted, a shorthand writer who can play the piano."
He received a reply from a young man, who soon mastered the new machine. It was some years before the machine came into general use in England.
The Irish Times, June 22nd, 1931