Typewriting Schools: Who Was Willy Scheidegger? (And What Was He Good For?)

Some years ago I came across an unusual typewriter at a place called Revolve in Canberra. Revolve is basically a rubbish dump recycling centre. At the time I thought I knew most European typewriter brand and model names, but this one threw me: It was an Adler, yet it was called a Scheidegger. What was even more intriguing was that underneath the typewriter in its case I found a large number of coloured plastic caps. Having a Remington Bantam (see below) in my collection, and also having several Imperial colour-coded touch-typing cards, I could see that the caps were for keytops, to teach colour-coded touch typing.

When I got the machine home and re-attached the caps to the keytops, I found I was missing about four red caps. So I went back to Revolve, got down on my hands and knees in the open area where I’d found the Scheidegger, and dug around with my fingers until I’d found all the missing caps. They had fallen out of the typewriter case on to the ground and had been trampled into the dirt.

I’d long been interested to find out more about Willy Scheidegger and his Swiss typing schools. Then late last year I received a Princess-Matic also re-branded a Scheidegger. This is exactly the same typewriter (below) which appears on Adwoa Bagalini’s genevatypewriters blog, and Adwoa has outlined some detail about Willy Scheidegger and his typing schools. Apparently they spread across Europe after originating in Switzerland, and reached London, where my two Scheidegger typewriters were used.

With my Princess-Matic, I received a great deal of literature relating to the Willy Scheidegger Swiss Typing School at 5-6 Argyll Street in London. This naturally heightened my interest in the man. The literature, dated 1964-1971, had belonged to a Pat Crouzieres (later Mrs Redfern?) of Camberwell, and included a diploma, student report cards, guarantee, receipts, typewriter manual, course instruction book and a code-coded chart.

When one Googles Willy Scheidegger, it becomes immediately apparent that there are a few good stories behind the man. But quite what? For one thing, Mr Scheidegger was the defending party in a landmark British court case, appearing against the Minister of Social Security. The outcome of this case, apparently, established that a worker who is not an employee for one purpose may be treated as such for another. “It was held that a worker may be an employee for the purposes of vicarious liability for torts, but not for the purposes of national insurance.” Wikipedia tells us that a tort is, “in common law jurisdictions, a wrong that involves a breach of a civil duty owed to someone else. It is differentiated from a crime, which involves a breach of a duty owed to society in general. Though many acts are both torts and crimes, prosecutions for crime are mostly the responsibility of the state, private prosecutions being rarely used; whereas any party who has been injured may bring a lawsuit for tort.”

Not just torts, it seems, but also rorts. Mr Scheidegger’s name is mentioned in Hansard records of questions asked in the British House of Commons. These, from what I can gather, relate to Mr Scheidegger’s questionable policy of forcing people who joined his typing schools to buy one of his Scheidegger typewriters. The questions were asked as to whether a law was being broken under the terms of the Trade Practices Act.

The Dutch Wikipedia has an entry for Willy Scheidegger’s business school. It says it was named in 1947 in Switzerland and began with courses teaching typewriting in a classroom context. “Scheidegger Holding has operations in 12 European countries … Scheidegger Opleidingen Nederland B.V. was established on March 1, 1962 … The offering consists primarily of secretarial, financial and management training. Headquartered … at Marathon 9H to Hilversum”

I managed to contact Judith Rijpstra, in charge of marketing and communications at the Dutch institute. But she was unable to throw any light on Mr Scheidegger's life. She suggested I get in touch with the Swiss Central Business Registration in Zurich to get more information. "Until 1988, the headquarters of Scheidegger was in Zurich. Judith also pointed out that in May last year (2010) NCOI Opleidingsgroep ("a Dutch education company for working people") had taken over Scheidegger "and expanded the business to more than 100 different educations".
Anyone out there able to help me with some more information about Willy Scheidegger?