On bullet points

In late 1942, there were signs that the Second World War was starting to turn. However, the sheer size and scale of co-ordinating the activities of the war machine was creating strain. Churchill felt many times that, at major strategy meetings, the key messages were being lost and ignored.

He mentioned this to one of his oldest friends, Arthur Murchison, as an aside in a letter in November that year. "I fear that, for the lack of adequate communication of what we must achieve, our achievements will be delayed," he wrote. Murchison, at that time an academic in the medieval history department at Cambridge University, took the matter to heart. He remembered the long lists of tallies he had studied for his doctorate. These were then summarised with further tallies. Surely this was the answer.

Over several weeks he came to develop the idea of the bullet point, an idea he presented to Churchill in early 1943. His detailed paper explains the difference between the list as rhetoric, as a numbered list (which encourages prioritisation) and the bulleted list, which presents key ideas "democratically". He famously showed this by using Churchill's "fight them on the beaches" speech. As Murchison points out, the existing speech is a fine example of rhetoric. But it could have been presented as the order in which the country should have been defended:

We shall fight

1. on the beaches
2. on the landing grounds
3. in the fields and in the streets
4. in the hills
5. never surrender

Or, as a bulleted list, which is not prioritised

We shall fight

• on the beaches
• on the landing grounds
• in the fields and in the streets
• in the hills
• never surrender

Churchill was thrilled, and the bullet point was quickly taken up by Allied commanders and strategists. He later claimed its invention had shortened the war by six months. After the war its use spread more widely. However, because of wartime secrecy, Arthur Murchison's link to the invention was lost, and was only redicovered several years ago.

Today, his only memorial is his gravestone, to be found in the picturesque churchyard of Histon, near Cambridge. The inscription reads

Here lies Arthur Murchison, medieval historian:

• Born 12 March 1900
• Died 24 April 1970
• Inventor of the bulletpoint