John Adrian Shepherd-Barron OBE (23 June 1925 – 15 May 2010) was an India-born

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, ...

inventor An invention is a unique or novel device, method, composition, idea or process. An invention may be an improvement upon a machine, product, or process for increasing efficiency or lowering cost. It may also be an entirely new concept. If an ...

, who led the team that installed the first cash machine, sometimes referred to as the

automated teller machine An automated teller machine (ATM) or cash machine (in British English) is an electronic telecommunications device that enables customers of financial institutions to perform financial transactions, such as cash withdrawals, deposits, fund ...

or ATM.

Early life

John Adrian Shepherd-Barron was born on 23 June 1925 in Shillong (now Meghalaya),

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area, the List of countries and dependencies by population, second-most populous ...

, to British parents. His Scottish father, Wilfred Shepherd-Barron, was chief engineer of the Chittagong Port Commissioners in North Bengal, which was then part of the British Empire, then later Chief Engineer of the

Port of London Authority The Port of London Authority (PLA) is a self-funding public trust established on 31 March 1909 in accordance with the Port of London Act 1908 to govern the Port of London. Its responsibility extends over the Tideway of the River Thames and its ...

, before becoming president of the

Institution of Civil Engineers The Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE) is an independent professional association for civil engineers and a charitable body in the United Kingdom. Based in London, ICE has over 92,000 members, of whom three-quarters are located in the UK, whi ...

, whilst his mother Dorothy, was an

Olympic Olympic or Olympics may refer to Sports Competitions * Olympic Games, international multi-sport event held since 1896 ** Summer Olympic Games ** Winter Olympic Games * Ancient Olympic Games, ancient multi-sport event held in Olympia, Greece bet ...

tennis player and Wimbledon ladies doubles champion.John Shepherd-Barron
telegraph.co.uk. Accessed 17 October 2022. He was educated at

Stowe School , motto_translation = I stand firm and I stand first , established = , closed = , type = Public school Independent school, day & boarding , religion = Church of England , president = , head_label = Headmast ...

, the

University of Edinburgh The University of Edinburgh ( sco, University o Edinburgh, gd, Oilthigh Dhùn Èideann; abbreviated as ''Edin.'' in post-nominals) is a public research university based in Edinburgh, Scotland. Granted a royal charter by King James VI in 1 ...

and

Trinity College, Cambridge Trinity College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Founded in 1546 by King Henry VIII, Trinity is one of the largest Cambridge colleges, with the largest financial endowment of any college at either Cambridge or Oxford. ...

(from where he dropped out before successfully finishing the first year in Economics). During World War II, he was commissioned into the

Airborne Forces Airborne forces, airborne troops, or airborne infantry are ground combat units carried by aircraft and airdropped into battle zones, typically by parachute drop or air assault. Parachute-qualified infantry and support personnel serving in a ...

, serving with the 159th Parachute Light Regiment.

Career

Shepherd-Barron joined

De La Rue De La Rue plc (, ) is a British company headquartered in Basingstoke, England, that designs and produces banknotes, secure polymer substrate and banknote security features (including security holograms, security threads and security printe ...

in the 1950s as a management trainee and grew to become Managing Director of

Instruments (with a mandate to run down the company). He conceived the idea for a self-service machine dispensing cash whilst lying in the bath. He was considering the problem of bank opening hours, having turned up at a bank after closing time one day and found himself unable to withdraw money. Shepherd-Barron has stated that he was inspired by chocolate

vending machine A vending machine is an automated machine that provides items such as snacks, beverages, cigarettes, and lottery tickets to consumers after cash, a credit card, or other forms of payment are inserted into the machine or otherwise made. The fi ...

s: ''"It struck me there must be a way I could get my own money, anywhere in the world or the UK. I hit upon the idea of a chocolate bar dispenser, but replacing chocolate with cash."'' The first

De La Rue Automatic Cash System An automated teller machine (ATM) or cash machine (in British English) is an electronic telecommunications device that enables customers of financial institutions to perform financial transactions, such as cash withdrawals, deposits, fun ...

(DACS) machine, called ''Barclaycash'', was installed outside the Enfield branch of Barclays Bank in northern

Greater London Greater may refer to: *Greatness Greatness is a concept of a state of superiority affecting a person or object in a particular place or area. Greatness can also be attributed to individuals who possess a natural ability to be better than al ...

in June 1967. The first person to withdraw cash was actor

Reg Varney Reginald Alfred Varney (11 July 1916 – 16 November 2008) was an English actor, entertainer and comedian. He is best remembered for having played the lead role of bus driver Stan Butler in the LWT sitcom ''On the Buses'' (1969–73) and its th ...

, a celebrity resident of Enfield known for his part in a number of popular television series. An early deployment of this device outside of the UK took place in Zurich on November, 1967. It was called a ''Geldautomat''. The DACS machines used cheque-like tokens (which were guillotined to the size of a normal cheque inside the machine) which had been impregnated with a radioactive compound of

carbon-14 Carbon-14, C-14, or radiocarbon, is a radioactive isotope of carbon with an atomic nucleus containing 6 protons and 8 neutrons. Its presence in organic materials is the basis of the radiocarbon dating method pioneered by Willard Libby and co ...

. The radioactive signal was detected by the machine and matched against the

personal identification number A personal identification number (PIN), or sometimes redundantly a PIN number or PIN code, is a numeric (sometimes alpha-numeric) passcode used in the process of authenticating a user accessing a system. The PIN has been the key to facilitati ...

(PIN) entered on a keypad. The short-range beta emission from carbon-14 could be easily detected, and he determined that the radiation hazard was acceptable as "you would have to eat 136,000 such cheques for it to have any effect on you". Initially, a PIN length of six digits was proposed; Shepherd-Barron tested this system on his wife, Caroline, but found that the longest string of numbers that she could remember was four. As a result, four-digit PINs were chosen and as ATMs expanded across the globe, this became the world standard. Withdrawals from the first ''Barclaycash'' machines were limited to a maximum of £10, "quite enough for a wild weekend" according to Shepherd-Barron. Shepherd-Barron received the OBE in the 2005

New Year's Honours The New Year Honours is a part of the British honours system, with New Year's Day, 1 January, being marked by naming new members of orders of chivalry and recipients of other official honours. A number of other Commonwealth realms also mark this ...

list for services to banking as "inventor of the automatic cash dispenser". Various rival cash dispenser systems quickly began to emerge. Another Scottish inventor,

James Goodfellow James Goodfellow OBE, KCHS, FIIE (born 1937) is a Scottish inventor. In 1966, he patented personal identification number (PIN) technology and an automated teller machine (ATM). He is generally considered the inventor of the modern ATM. G ...

, who was working at

Smiths Industries Smiths or Smith's may refer to: Companies *Smith Electric Vehicles, or Smith's, a manufacturer of electric trucks *Smith's Food and Drug, or Smith's, an American supermarket chain ** Smith's Ballpark, a baseball stadium in Salt Lake City, Utah, U.S ...

, was commissioned by

Chubb Locks Chubb Locks is a former brand name (expired 2010) of the Mul-T-Lock subsidiary of the Assa Abloy Group, which manufactures locking systems for residential, secure confinement and commercial applications. History Chubb was started as a ship's ...

to work on a new cash machine. Together with Anthony Davies, he developed a new system whereby the user's PIN could be stored on a reusable

bank card A bank card is typically a plastic card issued by a bank to its clients that performs one or more of a number of services that relate to giving the client access to bank account. Physically, a bank card will usually have the client's name, the ...

, rather than on single-use cheques. The system was patented as GB1197183 and US3905461 and was cited by subsequent patents as "prior art device". Goodfellow's PIN system resembled modern ATMs more than Shepherd-Barron's machine. However, Shepherd-Barron's machine was the first to be installed, if only for a few days.

Personal life

In 1953, he married Caroline Murray, the daughter of Sir Kenneth Murray, one-time chairman of the Royal Bank of Scotland. They had three sons. One, Nicholas Shepherd-Barron FRS, is

professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an academic rank at universities and other post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin as a "person who professes". Professo ...

algebraic geometry Algebraic geometry is a branch of mathematics, classically studying zeros of multivariate polynomials. Modern algebraic geometry is based on the use of abstract algebraic techniques, mainly from commutative algebra, for solving geometrical ...

at the

King's College London King's College London (informally King's or KCL) is a public research university located in London, England. King's was established by royal charter in 1829 under the patronage of King George IV and the Duke of Wellington. In 1836, King's ...

Death

John Adrian Shepherd-Barron died on 15 May 2010 after a brief illness at the age of 84 in Raigmore Hospital,

Inverness, Scotland Inverness (; from the gd, Inbhir Nis , meaning "Mouth of the River Ness"; sco, Innerness) is a city in the Scottish Highlands. It is the administrative centre for The Highland Council and is regarded as the capital of the Highlands. Historic ...

. He was survived by his wife and their three sons, and extended family.Inventor of cash machine, John Shepherd-Barron, dies
bbc.co.uk. 19 May 2010.
The Washington Post. 21 May 2010

References

External links

* With photos of the ''Barclaycash'' tokens and machines {{DEFAULTSORT:Shepherd-Barron, John 1925 births 2010 deaths Scottish inventors British inventors Officers of the Order of the British Empire People educated at Stowe School Alumni of the University of Edinburgh Alumni of Trinity College, Cambridge Royal Artillery officers British Army personnel of World War II People from Shillong British people in colonial India People associated with Shillong