Vviewpoints
DOI: 10.1145/1831407.1831417
historical reflections
victorian Data
Processing
Reflections on the first payment systems.
PhotograPh by huLton archiVe/getty iMages
IAM One OF those individuals known as a “historian of com- puting.” Perhaps we are stuck with that appellation, but it can lead one to suppose that
all the most significant and important
things in information processing happened after the invention of the digital
computer. Of course, we usually give
a nod to Charles Babbage’s calculating engines and Herman Hollerith’s
punched card machines. But this, too,
is misleading because it suggests that
machinery was always central to data
processing. The fact is that the Victorian world was awash with data and
with organizations that processed it;
and they usually used nothing more
technologically advanced than pen and
paper. The Bankers’ Clearing House—
the first payment system—is just one
of many examples.
The Bankers’ Clearing House was established in London in the early 1800s.
Interestingly, we owe the first description of the Bankers’ Clearing House
to Charles Babbage. Today we think of
Babbage primarily as the inventor of
calculating machines, but in his lifetime he was better known as a scien-
London bankers’ clerks meet at the clearing house in Post office court, Lombard Street, to
exchange cheques and settle accounts, circa 1830.
tist and an economist of international
standing. In 1832 he published the first
economic treatise on mass production,
The Economy of Machinery and Manu-
factures. 1 It is there that he published
his account of the Bankers’ Clearing
House. When Babbage wrote his book,
the Bankers’ Clearing House was a se-
cretive organization that was practical-
ly unknown to the general public (not
least because the organization handled
very large sums of cash). It happened,
however, that Babbage was on good
terms with Sir John Lubbock, a partner
of Lubbock’s Bank and a founder of
the Clearing House. Lubbock was an
