In 1828 W. Drew Snooke, who characterized himself as a professor of mathematics, had printed on the Isle of Wight and published in London a book entitled,
The Calendar of the Memory. Comprehending Familiar Explanations of the subjects Necessary for the General Calendar, & co. With the Rules rendered in Verse for the Memory by which the Principal Divisions of Time, Moon's Age, Eclipses, Tides, with Various Other Astronomical and Interesting Particulars, can be Mentally Ascertained. Also a Guide to the Star, Artificial Memory, Rules, Theorems, &c & c.
Snooke's mnemomic technique was mainly to write rhyming verses for to be memorized for many specific calendar or astronomical references. He also developed a neologistic method of substituting letters for numbers so that if numbers need to be memorized they could be convented into a pecular collection of neologisms which could be memorized in verse, etc.
Snooke was also the author of
Flora Vectiana: Being an Arrangement of the More Rare and Interesting Plants Indigenous to the Isle of Wight (1823). That fact, and the fact that his
Calendar of the Memory was printed on the Isle of Wight, suggests that he might have been a resident of the island.
