Primitive forms can be traced to ancient times. Later, forms may be identified with the emergence of statistics in the work of John Gaunt (c.1662). Modern forms appeared in the 19th century to simplify the drafting of legal pleadings. The mechanised production of form documents started in 1821 when Charles Babbage began work on actuarial tables. He is credited with the invention of the modern form document. Electronic forms (see HTML Forms) are a crucial way to post data to webservers and from there to databases. This data capturing exercise traps a significant amount of agency as it implies human discipline, bureaucratic control or the redistribution of responsibilities.