Henry Mill (c. 1683–1771) was an English inventor who

patent A patent is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of time in exchange for publishing an sufficiency of disclosure, enabling discl ...

ed the first

typewriter A typewriter is a Machine, mechanical or electromechanical machine for typing characters. Typically, a typewriter has an array of Button (control), keys, and each one causes a different single character to be produced on paper by striking an i ...

in 1714. He worked as a waterworks engineer for the New River Company, and submitted two patents during his lifetime. One was for a coach spring, while the other was for a "Machine for Transcribing Letters". The machine that he invented appears, from the patent, to have been similar to a typewriter, but nothing further is known. Other early developers of typewriting machines include

Pellegrino Turri Pellegrino Turri (1765–1828), an Italian inventor, invented a mechanical typing machine, one of the first typewriters A typewriter is a Machine, mechanical or electromechanical machine for typing characters. Typically, a typewriter has an ...

. Many of these early machines, including Turri's, were developed to enable the blind to write.

Life

The eldest son of Andrew and Dorothy Mill, was born in 1683 or 1684; according to his epitaph he was a relation of Sir Hugh Myddelton. He obtained an appointment about 1720 as engineer to the New River Company. Mill's obituary notice in the ''

Gentleman's Magazine ''The Gentleman's Magazine'' was a monthly magazine founded in London, England, by Edward Cave in January 1731. It ran uninterrupted for almost 200 years, until 1907, ceasing publication altogether in 1922. It was the first to use the term '' ...

'' states that he erected waterworks at

Northampton Northampton ( ) is a town and civil parish in Northamptonshire, England. It is the county town of Northamptonshire and the administrative centre of the Unitary authorities of England, unitary authority of West Northamptonshire. The town is sit ...

. He was employed by

Sir Robert Walpole Robert Walpole, 1st Earl of Orford (; 26 August 1676 – 18 March 1745), known between 1725 and 1742 as Sir Robert Walpole, was a British Whig statesman who is generally regarded as the ''de facto'' first Prime Minister of Great Britain, ser ...

to carry out the water supply for Houghton Hall. Mill in later life employed Robert Mylne as assistant. He died unmarried at his house in

Strand, London The Strand (commonly referred to with a leading "The", but formally without) is a major street in the City of Westminster, Central London. The street, which is part of London's West End Theatre, West End theatreland, runs just over from Tra ...

on 26 December 1771, and he was buried in Breamore Church, near

Salisbury Salisbury ( , ) is a city status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city and civil parish in Wiltshire, England with a population of 41,820, at the confluence of the rivers River Avon, Hampshire, Avon, River Nadder, Nadder and River Bourne, Wi ...

, with a long epitaph to his memory. The epitaph states that he was aged 87, but he is entered in the parish register as aged 88 years.

Inventions

In 1706 Mill obtained a patent (No. 376) for an improvement in carriage springs, and also in 1714 another patent (No. 395) for an apparatus "for impressing or transcribing of letters singly or progressively one after another, so neat and exact as not to be distinguished from print, very useful in settlements and public records". The patent contains no description of the apparatus, but it has been regarded as the first proposal for a typewriter.

Notes

;Attribution 1680s births 1771 deaths English inventors Typewriters {{England-engineer-stub