A VENDING MACHINE FOR MONEY

 

After the war was over, Shepherd-Barron came home to the U.K., where he wound up in the management trainee program at a company called De La Rue Instruments. He worked hard, drew a paycheck, and formed a habit of cashing the check each Friday at the same time.

Then, one Friday in 1965, he was delayed, and he arrived at the bank one minute after it closed. Stuck without cash for the weekend, he went home, drew a bath, and contemplated his dilemma.

"It struck me there must be a way I could get my own money, anywhere in the world or the UK," he recalled long afterward. "I hit upon the idea of a chocolate bar dispenser, but replacing chocolate with cash."

Yes, John Shepherd-Barron is the person credited with inventing the automated teller machine, or ATM, which debuted 57 years ago ... in England -- long before it hit the United States, by the way.

What's wild is that Shepherd-Barron wasn't in the banking industry or an accomplished inventor. But, a few months after his bathtub epiphany, he arranged to run into the chief general manager of Barclay's Bank.

The Telegraph picked up the story here, after Shepherd-Barron's death in 2010:

Sadly, this is apparently another instance of someone inventing something incredibly useful but never getting much in the way of financial reward as a result.

However, he received all kinds of honors for his work, and he apparently lived a long and happy life. And for that reason, I think we'll end with a quote from him about when he realized the reach of what he'd created.

It came years later when he was visiting Thailand, and he watched a farmer roll up to an ATM on an ox-driven cart, remove his wide-brimmed hat, and withdraw cash:

"It was the first evidence to me that we'd changed the world."

To read the complete article, see:
Replacing chocolate with cash (https://ckarchive.com/b/4zuvheh545n89a6ovveola30rvv77t5?lctg=gxw9m343)

To read earlier E-Sylum articles, see:
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO THE AUTOMATED TELLER MACHINE (https://www.coinbooks.org/esylum_v10n29a20.html)
ATM MAKER EXPERIMENTING WITH RETINA SCANNER (https://www.coinbooks.org/esylum_v18n45a33.html)
The Dawn of the Reverse ATM (https://www.coinbooks.org/v23/club_nbs_esylum_v23n42.html)
ATMS DISAPPEARING ALONG WITH CASH USAGE (https://www.coinbooks.org/v26/esylum_v26n10a29.html)

To read the earlier E-Sylum article, see:
Automated teller machine (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automated_teller_machine)

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