MAY 21, 2010
John Shepherd-Barron was inspired by the instant gratification of a candy machine to devise the first automated teller machine, changing banking forever.
Mr. Shepherd-Barron, who died Saturday at age 84 in his native Scotland, installed his first ATM at a branch of Barclays Bank in North London in 1967—a spot marked with a plaque memorializing "the world's first cash dispenser."
Many others were involved in creating today's 1.8 million networked ATMs, which girdle the globe, including one in Antarctica. But it was Mr. Shepherd-Barron who "was first across the finishing line," said Mike Lee, chief executive of the ATM Industry Association; Mr. Shepherd-Barron never patented the device, which fostered innovation within a vibrant ATM industry, Mr. Lee added. Mr. Shepherd-Barron's first ATM, originally called a "Barclaycash Machine," doled out a mere £10, or about $27.50 at the time—just enough, he liked to say, for "a wild weekend"—which is exactly how he got the idea.
Born to Scottish parents in India, Mr. Shepherd-Barron served in British forces in World War II, then attended the University of Cambridge. He went to work in 1950 for Thomas De La Rue & Co.—now De La Rue PLC—a London-based producer of banknotes whose innovations included the world's first postage stamp, Britain's "penny black" of 1840.
Mr. Shepherd-Barron joined De La Rue in 1950, and opened the company's stock certificate-printing business for Wall Street. De La Rue also produced checks, money-counting equipment and other machinery integral to the ATM.
But it was his own frustration at turning up at his bank a minute after closing time on a Saturday in the spring of 1965 that set Mr. Shepherd-Barron to thinking there had to be a better way to get cash.
"I had to ask my local garage to cash my check," he said in a 2007 speech. Like Archimedes before him, Mr. Shepherd-Barron had his eureka moment while stewing in the bath. "I thought of the chocolate-bar vending machine once common on railway-station platforms."
He took his idea of a money vending machine to Barclays, and within a fortnight had a contract for 250 of them. The first ATM was announced to great fanfare on June 27, 1967; Mr. Shepherd-Barron recalled he had to teach Barclays' vice chairman to push the buttons for his PIN, which was set to four digits at the insistence of Mr. Shepherd-Barron's wife.
Other ATMs were unveiled shortly thereafter by competitors in Britain and abroad. Mr. Shepherd-Barron continued for more than a decade to spread ATM technology around the world. He once said he realized how universal his invention had become when he watched a farmer in Thailand pull up to an ATM in an ox-drawn cart. In the U.S., he worked with Diebold and Citibank to produce some of the most popular ATM designs.In 2005, Queen Elizabeth made him a member of the Order of the British Empire, citing "services to banking."
Mr. Shepherd-Barron retired in 1985 to Easter Ross, not far from Inverness in the north of Scotland, where he farmed salmon. The fish were preyed upon by seals, "clever scoundrels," in his words. Once again, inspiration struck. "I invented a device to scare them off by playing the sound of killer whales," he told the BBC in 2007. "But it's ended up only attracting them more."
Inventor of ATM, John Shepherd-Barron, Dies at 84
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