John Ayres

John Ayres (fl. 1680–1700), an English author, scribe and publisher.

Ayres was of very humble origin, and the date and place of his birth are unknown. Coming up from the country a poor lad, he became footman to Mr. William Ashhurst (or Ashurst), alderman of London, then resident at Hornsey, who was knighted in 1689, and lord mayor of London in 1693-94. His master, taking a great liking to him, sent him to school, where he gained skill in writing and arithmetic. He continued some years in Ashurst's service, but marrying a fellow-servant with £200, he was enabled to set up as a teacher of writing and accounts in St. Paul's Churchyard, where his industry and ability soon procured him so many scholars that his income from teaching alone was nearly £800 a year.

About 1680 he commenced the execution and publication of calligraphic works which made him famous as one of the great reformers in the writing commonwealth, and the introducer into this country of the beautiful Italian hand. Robert More, in his essay on the First Invention of Writing, prefixed to his own Specimens of Penmanship (1716?), says: "The late Colonel Ayres (a disciple of Mr. Topham) introduced the bastard Italian hand amongst us, which by the best masters has been admitted, naturalised, and improved. Nor is it a diminution of our characters which survive him that therein the colonel was the common father of us all. He earned the glory of English penmanship far beyond his predecessors."

Ayres continued teaching and publishing scholastic works until his sudden death, from apoplexy, while regaling some friends at Vauxhall. The date of this occurrence is not known; but it was before 1709, as Rayner, his scholar, who published his Paul's Scholar's Copy Book in that year, alludes to his death.

His contemporaries speak of him as "colonel" and "major", in reference, apparently, to his position in some of the city bands.

The works which he issued from the Rolling Press were:

Ayres also published Arithmetic made Easie for the Use and Benefit of Tradesmen, 1693, dedicated to his former master, Sir William Ashurst, Knt. The second edition, "much corrected and enlarged", 1695, is in 12mo, 190 pp. There were many editions before and after his death;, the twelfth, published in 1714, has additional pages on bookkeeping by Charles Snell, his fellow-pupil and former rival in the reform of the art of writing, with whom it was said he had many bickerings in the course of their joint career. Ayres's poorly executed effigies is given in the later editions of his Arithmetic.

...
Wikipedia