Scottish Inventor of the Atm Is One of Four

PRESS RELEASE

EMBARGO: Not for broadcast or publication before 00:01 Saturday October 8, 2016

SCOTTISH INVENTOR OF THE ATM IS ONE OF FOUR

NEW INDUCTEES TO THE ENGINEERING HALL OF FAME

James Goodfellow, the original patentor of the automated teller that transformed the way we get cash from banks is one of four Scottish engineers to join the Scottish Engineering Hall of Fame.

He will be joined by Sir Duncan Michael, the talented structural engineer who restructured Ove Arup and Partners into a global business; Robert Stevenson, bridge and lighthouse designer and founder of a family dynasty of lighthouse engineers; and Alexander Graham Bell, the inventor of the telephone.

Their induction follows the annual Institution of Engineers and Shipbuilders in Scotland (IESIS) James Watt dinner, held in Glasgow last night. (Friday 7 October, 2016)

Gordon Masterton, Chairman of Judges for the Hall of Fame, said: "We are delighted to welcome more recent engineers like Duncan and James into this pantheon of Scottish Engineering, as well as some of the notable older pioneering engineers. Scotland can rightly claim to have provided the educational base for many of the world’s greatest engineers who have gone on to lead great companies and make world-changing inventions. Duncan Michael and James Goodfellow are living proof that this tradition is alive and well.”

Collectively, the 27 members now in the Hall of Fame tell a story of 450 years of world-beating engineering innovation that has led to massive improvements in the quality of life and economy in Scotland, the United Kingdom and world-wide.

Welcoming the announcement of the new inductees, Sara Thiam, Director Scotland of the Institution of Civil Engineers, said: “It is wonderful to see great engineering getting recognition. Many don’t realise the human impact that civil engineers, and engineers in general, make upon everyday life. But the induction of someone like James Goodfellow highlights an innovator of a piece of engineering most of us use every day in life without thinking.

“Civil Engineers, and other engineers, create the environment we live in, so they have a massive impact on all our lives. The Hall of Fame attempts to recognise that contribution.”

The Scottish Engineering Hall of Fame was launched in 2011 by The Institution of Engineers and Shipbuilders in Scotland (IESIS), and is supported by engineering institutions, museums and trade bodies in Scotland. The Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE) Scotland is calling for infrastructure improvements to be placed at the heart of Scotland’s programme for government to significantly boost local growth, environmental sustainability and quality of life – all backed with the right investment, frameworks and skills needed to fully realise the benefits.

ENDS. (417 words)

For further information please contact:

Gordon Masterton, IESIS (Chairman of Judges for the Hall of Fame)

Tel: 07770 851747 Email:

Notes to editors

Website: http://www.engineeringhalloffame.org/index.html

The James Watt Dinner is the annual dinner of IESIS, Scotland's multi-disciplinary engineering institution founded in 1857. Each year it features the announcements of the latest inductees to the Scottish Engineering Hall of Fame. The Hall of Fame tells the story of Scotland’s engineering contribution to our civilisation through the achievements and lives of the inductees. There are now 27 inductees.

The new inductees

James Goodfellow (b.1937)

James Goodfellow, born in Paisley, apprenticed to Renfrew Electrical and Radio Engineers, saw national service in the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers and became a development engineer in Kelvin Hughes, Glasgow.

In the early 1960's, banks in the UK wanted to close on Saturday mornings. A method had to be found to provide an acceptable level of service for customers who work during banking hours. An automatic cash dispenser was seen as the solution, a concept that had been around since the thirties. James Goodfellow was given the project in 1965.

"My task was to design the means of allowing a customer, and only a genuine customer, to actuate the dispenser mechanism. Eventually I designed a system which accepted a machine readable encrypted card, to which I added a numerical keypad into which an obscurely related Personal Identification Number had to be entered manually, by the customer. This PIN was known only to the person to whom the card was issued. If card and keypad inputs agreed, the cash dispenser mechanism was activated and the appropriate money was fed out to the customer."

What we now call the automated telling machine (ATM) spread throughout the world, and has been a transformative technology with an estimated three million machines. It has become an essential part of modern life, but although conceived in the 1930s as an idea, it took James Goodfellow's invention to make the concept a reality. He received £10 bonus from his employer for the invention. James Goodfellow is now generally accepted as being the inventor of the ATM.

James continued to generate innovative design ideas and leadership throughout his career, being twice a recipient of IBM's Outstanding Technical Achievement Award.

Sir Duncan Michael (b.1937)

Duncan Michael was born in Beauly, and studied engineering at the University of Edinburgh. He reached the highest level in global consulting engineering through his excellence in structural engineering and business expertise, and applied his engineering approach and philosophy to change the structure of consulting engineers Ove Arup Partners during his time as Chairman between 1995 and 2002.

In 1957 Arup had joined with Jorn Utzon to design the Sydney Opera House which was to be a highly complex construction, and Duncan was sent to Sydney to join the team that delivered this iconic structure. His part of the project was the 'side shells' which supported all the spherical roof surfaces as key elements of the project.

In his work on the Shahyad Aryamehr Monument in Tehran (1968) he used computers to enable the stonemasons to create the complex geometry regime in warped pieces of white marble. He won his reputation in Hong Kong by a series of repair projects for dangerous building sites on the slopes associated with the Po Shan disaster. His subsequent contribution helped to establish ambitious modern attitudes to building construction in Hong Kong. He became a board director of Arup in 1977 and Chairman in 1995. He was knighted in 2001.

Robert Stevenson (1772-1850)

Born in Glasgow, Robert Stevenson was father to David, Alan and Thomas Stevenson who all became engineers. His grandson was famous author, Robert Louis Stevenson.

His first assignment as an apprentice was the supervision of the erection of a lighthouse on Little Cumbrae. From these beginnings he realised the importance of lighthouses and that the marking of navigation hazards would save countless lives and greatly improve the safety of near coastal shipping. In total Robert Stevenson was responsible for the building of over 15 lighthouses, including the Bell Rock Lighthouse in 1811.

The building of the lighthouses was a heroic achievement. Not only did the structure have to be designed to cope with the great forces of nature - waves, currents and wind – but the designer also had to devise the method of construction and design, the lifting plant et al necessary to construct a monolith, usually on a rock in the middle of the ocean, sometimes far offshore.

Stevenson served for nearly 50 years as engineer to theNorthern Lighthouse Board, until 1842. He innovated in the choice of light sources, mountings, reflector design, the use ofFresnel lenses, and in rotation and shuttering systems providing lighthouses with individual signatures allowing them to be identified by seafarers. For this last innovation he was awarded a gold medal by theWilliam I of the Netherlands.

Stevenson was also responsible for a number of bridges in Scotland including the Stirling New Bridge, Annan Bridge, and Hutcheson’s Bridge over the Clyde in Glasgow.

Alexander Graham Bell(1847-1922)

Born in Edinburgh and educated at the University of Edinburgh and in London. In 1870 he emigrated with his family to Canada and the following year he moved to Boston and became interested in transmitting the human voice over wires.

Throughout 1874 and 1875 Bell worked on both the harmonic telegraph and a voice transmitting device and in 1875 came up with a simple receiver that could turn electricity into sound and he was granted a patent in March 7, 1876. The Bell Telephone Company was created in 1877 with Bell the owner of one-third of the shares, quickly making him a wealthy man. By 1886 more than 150,000 people in the US owned telephones.

In January 1915 Bell was invited to make the first transcontinental phone call from New York to San Francisco. When Bell died on 2 August 1922, at the conclusion of his funeral the entire telephone system in North America was shut down for one minute in tribute to his life.

He founded the Volta Laboratory in Washington where he continued experiments in communication, medical research and in techniques for teaching speech to the deaf.

Bell and his assistant Charles Sumner Tainter jointly invented a wireless telephone, named a photophone, which was a precursor to the fibre-optic communication systems which achieved popular world-wide use in the 1980's.

Bell was also interested in exploring flight and in 1907, along with several other associates, formed the Aerial Experimental Association. The group developed several flying machines including the Silver Dart which was the first powered machine flown in Canada. Bell later worked on Hydrofoils and set a world record for speed for this type of boat.

In 1888, Bell was one of the founding members of the National Geographical Society, and served as its President from 1896 to 1904 and helped to establish its journal.

Bell has been ranked among the 100 Greatest Britons (2002), Top Ten Greatest Canadians (2004), the 100 Greatest Americans (2005) and one of the Ten Greatest Scottish Scientists.