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. * British national identity, the characteristics of British people and culture ...

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) is an electronic telecommunications device that enables customers of financial institutions to perform financial transactions, such as cash withdrawals, deposits, funds transfers, balance inquiries or account ...

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, 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 by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...

, 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 organization, charitable body in the United Kingdom. Based in London, ICE has over 92,000 members, of whom three-quarters ar ...

, whilst his mother Dorothy, was an Olympic tennis player and

Wimbledon Wimbledon most often refers to: * Wimbledon, London, a district of southwest London * Wimbledon Championships, the oldest tennis tournament in the world and one of the four Grand Slam championships Wimbledon may also refer to: Places London * W ...

ladies doubles champion.John Shepherd-Barron
telegraph.co.uk. Accessed 17 October 2022. He was educated at Stowe School, the

University of Edinburgh The University of Edinburgh (, ; abbreviated as ''Edin.'' in Post-nominal letters, post-nominals) is a Public university, public research university based in Edinburgh, Scotland. Founded by the City of Edinburgh Council, town council under th ...

and

Trinity College, Cambridge Trinity College is a Colleges of the University of Cambridge, 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 ...

(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 are ground combat units carried by aircraft and airdropped into battle zones, typically by parachute drop. Parachute-qualified infantry and support personnel serving in airborne units are also known as paratroopers. The main ...

, 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 produces secure digital and physical protections for goods, trade, and identities in 140 countries. It sells to governments, central banks, and businesses. Its ...

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 dispenses 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 payment is otherwise m ...

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

Greater London Greater London is an administrative area in England, coterminous with the London region, containing most of the continuous urban area of London. It contains 33 local government districts: the 32 London boroughs, which form a Ceremonial count ...

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 London Weekend Television, LWT sitcom ''On the Buse ...

, 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

Zürich Zurich (; ) is the list of cities in Switzerland, largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zurich. It is in north-central Switzerland, at the northwestern tip of Lake Zurich. , the municipality had 448,664 inhabitants. The ...

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

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

personal identification number A personal identification number (PIN; sometimes RAS syndrome, redundantly a PIN code or PIN number) 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 faci ...

(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 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 (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. Goodfellow was born i ...

, who was working at Smiths Industries, was commissioned by

Chubb Locks Chubb Locks is a former brand name of the Mul-T-Lock subsidiary of the Assa Abloy Group, which manufactures locking systems for residential, secure confinement and commercial applications. When the brand licence expired in 2010 the name cea ...

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, 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 The Royal Bank of Scotland Public Limited Company () is a major retail banking, retail and commercial bank in Scotland. It is one of the retail banking subsidiaries of NatWest Group, together with NatWest and Ulster Bank. The Royal Bank of Sco ...

. They had three sons. One, Nicholas Shepherd-Barron FRS, is

professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an Academy, academic rank at university, universities and other tertiary education, post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin ...

algebraic geometry Algebraic geometry is a branch of mathematics which uses abstract algebraic techniques, mainly from commutative algebra, to solve geometry, geometrical problems. Classically, it studies zero of a function, zeros of multivariate polynomials; th ...

at the

King's College London King's College London (informally King's or KCL) is a public university, public research university in London, England. King's was established by royal charter in 1829 under the patronage of George IV of the United Kingdom, King George IV ...

Death

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