Shillong, Aug 11: Hospitals across Shillong have been asking banks to install ATM machines at their premises. Luckily for Gordon Robert Hospital, who will be celebrating its centenary year next year has finally got an ATM in its premise. The State Bank of India last week installed the ATM machine on the request of hospital authorities.

The story behind ATM and this specific hospital is intriguing as the inventor of Automated Teller Machine (ATM) was born in the same hospital almost a century ago in the year 1925.

John Adrian Shepherd Barron who invented the most convenient machine for cash dispensation was born at the Gordon Robert Hospital in Shillong on June 23, 1925.

His father was Wilfred Shepherd Barron, the Chief Engineer of the Chittagong Port Commissionerate and his mother was Dorothy, an Olympic tennis player and a Wimbledon Women’s Doubles champion. Though there is no record of the British innovator leaving Shillong, it is apparent that the family left after his Scottish father took over as the Chief Engineer of the Port of London Authority.

John Adrian Shepherd Barron was educated at Stowe School, the University of Edinburgh and Trinity College, Cambridge.

Hospital Medical Superintendent of Gordon Robert Hosptial Dr Roken Nongrum said the ATM was installed based on a petition submitted to the SBI on the need to have an ATM at least before the hospital turns 100 years old next year.

“We are grateful to the bank authorities for having paid heed to our request. The ATM is special as the inventor of the ATM was born in this very hospital in 1925,” said Nongrum.

John Adrian Shepherd Barron died on May 15, 2010, when he was 84-year-old at Raigmore Hospital, Inverness, Scotland.