The London School

England is a country in which certain aspects of linguistics have an unusually long history. Linguistic description decomes a matter of practical importance to a nation when it evolves a standard of 'official' language for itself out of the welther of diverse and conflicting local usages. England was remarkable for the extent  to which various aspects of 'practical linguistics'flourished here, by which term refers to such activities as orthoepy (the codification and teaching of correct pronunciation), lexicography, invention of shorthand systems, spelling reform, and the creation of artificial 'philosophical languages' such as those of George Dalgano amd John Wilkins. One consequence of this tratidion for the pure academic discipline of linguistics which emerged in Britain in our time was an emphasis on phonetics.
Phonetic study in the modern sense was pioneered by Henry Sweet.
Sweet was the greatest of the few historical linguistswhom Britain produced in the nineteenth century to rival the burgeoning of historical linguistics in Germany, but unlike the German scholars, Sweet based his historical studies on a detailed understanding of the workings of the vocal organs. Sweet's general approach to phonetics was continued by Daniel Jones , who took the subject up as a hobby that they ought to consider teaching phonetics of French, was taken on as a lecturer there in 1907 and built up what became the first university department of phonetics in Britain.