Mavor, William Fordyce, 1758-1837

William Fordyce Mavor was born on August 1, 1758, in New Deer, Aberdeenshire, to John Mavor and Elizabeth Low. He left home at 17 to teach at a private school and to tutor the children of George Spencer, the 4th Duke of Marlborough. He married Ann Harris on October 17, 1782, and together they had seven children. He married his second wife, Harriet Segrave, on December 23, 1823, a year after his first wife’s death. He was a prolific author who wrote several books of poetry, created a shorthand system which he explained in “Universal Stenography” in 1779, and wrote educational books on History and Spelling. The book that EUT mentions in her Common Day Book is a 25 Volume set that was published between 1802 and 1804: Universal History, Ancient and Modern…to the General Peace of 1801. William Mavor died on December 29, 1837, and is buried at Woodstock Church, Woodstock, Oxfordshire.