He was born at Broughton in Cheshire, and educated at the Merchant Taylors' School. After graduating from the Cambridge, he became a fellow of Trinity, then studied medicine at Montpellier in France. Having perfected his own method of shorthand, he returned to England in 1716 to teach it. Most of his poems, the best-known of which is My spirit longeth for Thee, were religious in tone, but he is better remembered for his epigrams, and for the hymn, "Christians awake! Salute the happy morn".
Shortly after coming into his family inheritance in 1740, Byrom patented his "New Universal Shorthand".
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