Enfield Celebrates a Unique Anniversary: The Amazing Story

Enfield celebrates a very special and unique anniversary today. 51 years ago the Town was chosen to be the first location in the world to have an Automated Teller Machine (ATM), “Hole in the Wall”, Cash Machine or any of the other names that they have become known as. The ATM has become an integral part of life all over the world allowing people to access their cash quickly. On top of this the machines have become advanced so people can now deposit cash in their accounts, pay bills, top up phones or transfer money to other people.

Thousands of People turned up on June 27th 1967 to see Reg Varney use the first ever machine. 

John Shepherd-Barron was the inventor of this revolutionary machine. The first ATM’s were different to the ones used today. Money was withdrawn by inserting paper cheques marked with the mildly radioactive material carbon-14. People then had to put in their six digit Personal Identification Number (PIN), which later became 4 digits as it was recommended by Shepherd-Barron’s wife that it would be easier to remember. In an instant John Shepherd-Barron had changed the way we can access money and also introduced the amazingly important safety feature of PIN numbers. 

The creator, John Shepherd-Barron, with his world changing invention

Now in 2018 there are over three million cash machines across the globe with Britain having 70,000 ATM’s of its own. In 2016 a total of £179.78 billion was withdrawn from cash machines, showing the importance to people and the economy as a whole. However one problem still persists today that nearly 2,000 of the cash machines in Britain charge money for withdrawals. This is something that angers many people and hopefully co-operation between banks in the future means that these fees are stopped.

Special Celebrations were held in Enfield in 2017 due to it being the 50th Anniversary of the ATM. The Town received a special gold machine. 

To celebrate the 50th anniversary former employee of Barclays Enfield gave an interview to the Telegraph. Ms. Carole Greygoose was just 18 when the new machine was installed. She said that people at the time did not realise “what a huge difference” the new machines would make to people’s lives. The new ATM’s were instantly popular in Enfield. Indeed it was so in demand often ran out of money over the weekend. Ms. Greygoose also explained that all the accounting was done manually, which was a “long, arduous process... All cheques and credits were posted on to ledgers and then on to customers’ individual accounts. I remember the senior cashiers calculating the interest daily, by hand, on to enormous ledger sheets”.

The new machine placed into Enfield Barclays in 1967

It seems amazing then that an important invention that has since had a huge global influence had its first use in Enfield Town. Why was Enfield chosen of all places in England or even the world over? Barclays explained that "Enfield was chosen as it had a model cross-section community, was fairly self-contained and had sufficiently high enough windows and enough space inside for the safe," Barclays tell us. Will Noble of The Londonist also believes that there were other reasons for the location stating that “the bank probably didn't want too many people fiddling with their latest toy, not before it had been properly tested out... That would explain the other relatively low-key venues for the first cash points. Enfield's machine may have been the first, but it was one of six prototypes; the others rolled out later that year were in Hove, Ipswich, Luton, Peterborough and Southend.”