The advent of the typewriter in the 19th century was very important. It changed the way that everyone worked. Until the invention of the typewriter all documents were written by hand. This was very time-consuming and office work was taken up with writing things down in triplicate! To some extent the typewriter freed up time for other aspects of office work. The first Remington advert declared: 'To save time is to lengthen life.' The typewriter invented the job of the typist and created the typing pool, bringing women into the office.

The typewriter was also the basis for developing other everyday printing machines such as the shop till. It inspired the development of secret code-writing machines to communicate with allies and foil the enemy in World War 2. And this piece of technology was ultimately the model for the 20th century computer keyboard.

The story of the typewriter began around 300 years ago, when the first patents appeared. Early versions were designed to help blind people to type, and one model looked like a pincushion with all the letters fanned out in a circle to print onto the paper below. The modern typewriter was actually invented in 1868 by Christopher Sholes an American publisher.

The first typewriter was called the 'Sholes & Glidden Type Writer' and it was produced by the gunmakers Remington & Sons in New York from 1874-78. Surprisingly this new innovation didn't take the world by storm. It was a slow, heavy and inefficient machine and only typed in capitals. A mere 5000 were sold it its first year. Many professionals were initially against the typewriter because they thought that it lacked the personal touch and clients would think it rude.

However, Remington made successive improvements in the design of its typewriter and it began to be more popular, establishing itself in the workplace and capturing the public's imagination. In 1892, the Sherlock Holmes detective story featured the typewriter in 'A Case of Identity'. Holmes solved the mystery by identifying the impostor's typewriter.

This is the Remington No.10. designed in 1908. It was the first Remington typewriter that allowed the user to see what they were writing. The keys struck the paper positioned on the front of the roller. Before this, the keys were positioned so that they would strike the underneath of the roller where the paper was in place. This meant that the user had been typing 'blind', and could only see what they had typed by moving back the carriage. The No.10 also had a lighter touch than the earlier models.

Typewriters in the workplace led to the creation of the typist - a person employed to type up documents. Typists often attended typing courses to be trained in 'touch-typing', (now called word-processing) and shorthand skills. 'Touch typing' involved mastering the QWERTY keyboard. Typists used all their fingers to type and learned to strike certain keys with each finger. Skilled typists could type almost 100 words per minute (WPM). Typing competitions were held to find the fastest and the most accurate typists. In the early days, the craze for typing competitions was at its highest as different typewriter manufacturers sponsored typing challenges to prove that their keyboards were the most efficient.

The typewriter opened up a whole new area of employment for women at the end of the 19th century. Until then, women were working in shops, factories or domestic service or, if they had the benefit of a good education they could enter the teaching or nursing professions. Women took up these new jobs, while men avoided them because they were low-paid with little status. Women formed 'typing pools', large offices where women sat in rows, tapping away at typewriters. Although women were initially limited to typing, it established them in the office and some were able to work for promotion to jobs in administration, management and sales.

This is the Remington No.10 typewriter dating from 1908. It is basically an open black box, with a roller for holding the paper, a ribbon and ribbon spools, and a keyboard with attached type levers and type bars.

The original typewriter keyboard is the same as contemporary keyboards. It is known as QWERTY - this name comes from the first six letters in the top alphabet row. The keys were arranged in this way so that frequently used letters were separated and would not clash and jam when typed. There are numbers across the top row and the shift key changes the letters to capitals when pressed.

Each key is attached to a type lever, which in turn is connected to a type bar with the letter mounted on the end. When a key is pressed down, the type lever pushes up and the type bar moves forward so that the type makes contact with the spool of ribbon and makes a printed letter on the page.

At the beginning of the 20th century a typewriter cost approximately the same as a personal computer today. This typewriter is made entirely of metal and is extremely heavy. Although it can be moved around, it was not meant to be portable and did not come with a case.

To type, the user first takes a piece of paper, with a carbon copy attached, and inserts it behind the roller. Then they turn the handles at either side so that the top of the paper rolls round to the front. By adjusting the carriage lever the type guide is at the left of the page. The type guide is the place where each letter is printed, and it moves across the paper as letters are typed.