In the sleepy rural towns of Victorian Devon, a little-known innovator designed a pioneering device that presaged the future of automated computation. Long before the dawn of modern computing, a 19th century banker devised an ingenious mechanical system to speed up tedious numerical calculations, over 75 years before the first electronic general-purpose computer.
This mostly forgotten inventor was Thomas Fowler, manager of a small regional English bank, who in 1838 constructed the world‘s first known fully-operational ternary calculating machine. By utilizing an unconventional three-based numerical system rather than the standard decimal approach, Fowler created an accessible yet revolutionary machine able to effortlessly perform both addition and multiplication calculations automatically.
Though Fowler‘s calculating machine did not directly influence later developments in computing technology, his pioneering innovation and novel use of ternary logic remain an overlooked milestone. The story of this device illuminates a little-known niche of early Victorian computing, while also revealing an eccentric English innovator whose alternative vision for mechanized mathematics was ultimately denied by history…
Overview of a Pioneering Victorian Innovator
Thomas Fowler (1777-1843) was manager and partner of Loveband & Co, the only bank in the rural town of Great Torrington in Devon, southwest England during the early decades of the 19th century. This modest regional financial institution served the local community, handling accounts, loans and associated mathematical calculations.
As well as bank administration, Fowler took on additional municipal roles, most significantly serving as Treasurer of the Torrington Poor Law Union from 1836. This body oversaw distribution of poor relief funds across almost 20 regional parishes. As Treasurer, Fowler was responsible for endless tedious accounting calculations to allocate proportionate payments to each parish dependant on changing budgetary factors.
It was in response to the mind-numbing workload created by his dual financial and civic accounting duties that Fowler sought ways to automate the incessant mathematical calculations. But rather than adopting typical decimal based systems, he turned to an unconventional alternative – a ternary numerical system using base 3 instead of base 10. By 1838 he had successfully built an operational mechanical calculating machine based on ternary logic, which could automatically perform addition, subtraction, multiplication and division calculations with precision and speed.
This long overlooked innovation not only stands as an early milestone in computing history. Fowler‘s ternary calculating machine also represented an ingenious yet ultimately abortive attempt to reformulate the very foundations of mathematic calculation.
Biography of a Rural Innovator
Thomas Fowler was born in 1777 in the small market town of Great Torrington, Devon. After receiving his education at Tavistock Grammar School 30 miles away, Fowler returned home in the early 1790s to begin an apprenticeship at the town‘s only bank – Loveband & Co.
This small regional bank had been established in the 1760s to serve Torrington and the surrounding agricultral communities. As the 19th century progressed, Loveband & Co steadily expanded its operations providing essential financial and accounting services handling deposits and withdrawals, approving loans, managing local accounts and investments.
By 1802, Fowler had proved himself a highly competent clerk and junior administrator. He was promoted to Manager and Partner, becoming responsible for overseeing all day-to-day banking operations at the age of just 25.
Financial Frustrations
As Manager, Fowler was required to personally handle and oversee all core banking tasks – manually recording and calculating deposits, withdrawals, interest payments, account balances and other essential financial data.
In the first decades of the 19th century, these processes involved endless tedious mathematical calculations and record keeping which had to be painstakingly maintained by hand. A single customer deposit or withdrawal transaction could require 10-15 minutes of Fowler‘s time noting figures in ledgers, double checking values, undertaking multipication/division calculations and confirming totals.
With between 30-50 customer transactions daily, this equated to over 8 hours of repetitive manual number crunching for Fowler every day before considering any other management or civic duties.
Such extensive mathematically-intensive workload was not unusual for early Victorian era banking. But as Loveband & Co expanded in scale after 1810 to serve Torrington‘s rising populace of 3,500 residents, the accounting workload threatened to overwhelm its Manager. This drove Fowler to pursue methods for accelerating what had become a laborious and frustrating chokepoint…
Civic Duties
In 1836, Fowler took on a second prominent administrative role that exponentially increased his accounting workload…
