Giuseppe Ravizza Giuseppe Ravizza Giuseppe Ravizza, a prolific typewriter inventor, was born in Novara, Italy in 1811 (died 1885), and spent nearly 40 years of his life obsessively grappling with the complexities of inventing a usable writing machine. He called his invention "" because of its piano-type keys and keyboard. The story of the 16 models he produced between 1847 and the early 1880s is described in "The Writing Machine" and illustrated from Ravizza’s 1855 patent, which bears similarities to the later upstroke design of the Sholes and Glidden typewriter. In 1868, the American Christopher Latham Sholes (1819-1890) patented, on behalf of
Latham of Bradwall defeating his opponent, Mr. O. Leslie Stephen, a director of the London and North-Western Railway, by 808 votes. At the next election, in June, 1886, he could not again offer himself as a candidate, owing to serious ill-health, and on 4 October 1886, he died at Bradwall Hall. Latham is part of the line of Lathams of Bradwall, a small hamlet close to Sandbach. In 1851, historian George Ormerod (who married Sarah Latham) wrote: Latham of Bradwall Latham of Bradwall is a family whose seat was at Bradwall Hall, in the township of Bradwall, near Sandbach, England, with several notable