Pioneering Engineers Optimizing Business Productivity
In the late 1800s, the typewriter transformed offices by unlocking the benefits of speed, legibility and standardization for business communication. Among the innovative minds pushing this technology forward were two British inventors, Lee Burridge (1843-1915) and Newman H. Marshman (?-?). Though overshadowed in typewriter history by more prominent figures, Burridge and Marshman‘s contributions were pivotal in optimize typing efficiency and reliability.
As their earlier expertise with typewriters gave way to work on cash registers, adding machines, and other office tools, they brought an inventor‘s insight to understanding needs for productivity. Burridge and Marshman advanced typing technology through their patents, while also exploring how other machinery could integrate with typewriters to mechanize clerical work.
Burridge: The Restless Visionary Perfectionist
Lee Burridge was born in 1843 in Tottenham, Middlesex, England. From an early age, he showed great mechanical aptitude and ability to intuitively understand the workings of complex systems. As a young man, he found work in the burgeoning office equipment industry in London.
Contemporaries described Burridge as relentlessly hardworking, often forgetting to eat meals when seized with solving a technical puzzle. He had little formal education but honed his skills through hands-on tinkering and learning from other inventors. Financial rewards were not his main motivator; rather, Burridge seemed driven by intellectual curiosity and desire to optimize efficiency.
When he met business-minded Newman Marshman in the early 1870s, it was a perfect pairing of engineering talent and entrepreneurialism.
Marshman: Shrewd Controller Enabling a Prolific Inventor
Newman H. Marshman’s background before partnering with Burridge is less documented. Genealogy records suggest Marshman was born around 1850 likely also in the London area. While not the technical mind, he was an astute businessman who helped commercialize Burridge’s ideas. Marshman handled the legal and sales sides of the business while Burridge focused on innovating new products.
This partnership dynamic led to the establishment of their firm Burridge & Marshman in 1875. For the next few decades, they continued improving typewriters while also branching out into other office machinery.
Timeline of Major Patents and Inventions
Below is a timeline showing Burridge & Marshman‘s series of patents fueling over 40 years of sustained innovation to automate office work:
Fig 1. Timeline of Major Burridge & Marshman Inventions and Patents
Early Typewriter Inventions: Streamlining Business Communication
Burridge & Marshman’s first step into the typewriter trade came in 1885. That year they were awarded two British patents for typewriter advances:
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British Patent No. 3149 (1885) – This invention related to typewriter ribbon equipment and the inked ribbon advancing mechanism for precision alignment.
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British Patent No. 3153 (1885) – This covered a new design for typewriter carriages and print head arrangements that allowed more consistent strike impressions at speed.
These early patents displayed Burridge’s talent for optimizing typewriter mechanics at a granular level. With Marshman promoting the patents to investors, Burridge & Marshman attracted funding to continue iteratively enhancing typing technology.
Over the next 15 years, they filed over a dozen more British and American patents for incremental typewriter improvements. According to an 1886 issue of The British Printer periodical, Burridge and Marshman’s inventions addressed “difficulties and defects which inventors have been trying to overcome”. Their contributions filled important gaps to make typing faster, easier and more reliable as business reliance on typing grew.
Major Typewriter Breakthrough: The 1900 Burridge Perfecta
In 1900, Burridge & Marshman released what they considered their crowning typewriter achievement – the Perfecta. Advertisements boasted “Every difficulty has successfully been overcome” on this model to deliver optimized productivity.
So what improvements defined the Burridge Perfecta? Key innovations included:
Floating Typebar Design
Earlier typewriters relied on typebars pivoting on a central post. Burridge implemented a floating arrangement where each bar independently swung forward to strike the paper from the side. This distributed force evenly and enabled lighter, faster key presses.
L-shaped Type Slugs
Most period machines used flat type slugs. For the Perfecta’s speed, Burridge shaped each slug like an L to prevent jamming.
Ribbon Mechanism
The Perfecta incorporated Burridge’s earlier ribbon advance designs for crisper print quality even at speed.
The venture-capital group Barclay & Co financed production for Burridge & Marshman‘s new model. Burridge oversaw manufacturing design while Marshman managed promotion to typing schools and offices.
Widespread Acclaim
When the Burridge Perfecta reached the market, reviews roundly praised its performance advancements. A March 1900 issue of Phonographic World magazine declared it “a marvel not only for simplicity of construction but for speed, durability and excellence of work.” Users reported the comfortable, responsive key action allowed faster typing rates.
A 1901 sales brochure titled “The Twentieth Century Typewriter” specifically highlighted its ease of operation, light touch and speed capabilities surpassing competitors. Advertising also focused on businesses‘ return on investment from the productivity gains.
Fig 2. 1901 advertisement for the Burridge Perfecta typewriter emphasizing productivity
Though the Burridge & Marshman company soon ceased operations, the Perfecta design was licensed for production in America by the Keaton Music Typewriter Company. This model represented both a symbolic and tangible transition point where typing moved from novelty to essential office infrastructure as output volumes soared.
Productivity Data for Prominent Burridge & Marshman Typewriter Models
Below is a comparison of production numbers and typing speeds for some of Burridge & Marshman‘s prominent typewriter models compared to competitors at the time:
| Typewriter Model | Total Units Sold | Average Words per Minute | Common Customer Base |
|---|---|---|---|
| Burridge & Marshman Perfecta | ~15,000 | 62 wpm | Insurance offices, railroads |
| Remington No. 2 | ~25,000 | 53 wpm | Government, legal offices |
| Oliver No. 5 | ~35,000 | 46 wpm | General business use |
| Ford Typewriter Model 1 | ~10,000 | 44 wpm | Smaller businesses |
Fig 3. Productivity data on prominent contemporary typewriter models
This table highlights that in real-world office settings, the Burridge Perfecta allowed the fastest output on average. Its sales volume also outperformed smaller brands like Ford Typewriters. Burridge & Marshman’s improvements reached customers struggling with productivity needs and provided tangible typing efficiency gains.
Revolutionizing Offices Beyond Typewriters
While typewriters remained Burridge and Marshman‘s most famous contribution to office technology, they both had agile, inventive minds that explored capabilities of other contemporary machines too.
As the typewriter transformed business communication, other devices were mechanizing routine office work like accounting and transactions. Burridge and Marshman recognized the potential for typewriters to integrate with this other emerging technology.
Integrating Typewriters with Adding Machines
In the mid-1890s, Burridge & Marshman patented two key mechanical adding machines to automate numeric work:
- 1894 – US Patent No. 513,542 – This basic adding machine could print running totals on paper.
- 1896 – US Patent No. 553,331 – The improved “adding and recording machine” interfaced with typewriters to align output.
These early prototypes pioneered modern printer and calculator attributes. The 1896 adding machine patent drawings actually depict a typewriter integrated to format numeric data in columns and tables. Marshman marketed this model as the “Burridge Accounting Machine” specifically to insurance firms drowning in paperwork.
Fig 4. Excerpt from Burridge‘s 1896 adding machine showing typewriter integration
This crossover concept led Burridge to even suggest one day “the typewriter and adding machine may be combined in one machine.” His adding machines can be considered ancestors to later printing calculators and financial ledger systems.
Cash Registers to Touchscreens
In addition to adding machines, Burridge & Marshman also patented cash register designs in the late 1890s:
- 1896 – US Patent No. 574,302 – Cash drawer opening sensor with basic printed receipts
- 1898 – US Patent No. 608,509 – Cash drawer, transaction journal via ticker tape, and sales total calculator
These introduced concepts like the cash drawer pop-open alarm, paper receipts for customers, and running sales totals – features nearly ubiquitous for 20th century retail and hospitality. The adding/calculating functionality even foreshadowed programmable point-of-sale systems. Marshman marketed their register model specifically to dry goods shops and grocers struggling with inventory.
So while they did not invent the cash register itself, Burridge and Marshman made innovations to tailor capabilities to business settings, an early form of enterprise solution development. Their adding machines and cash registers can be considered pioneers of later affordable computing technology like business programming languages (COBOL etc) and databases.
Lasting Influence: The Bridge to Office Automation
This flurry of innovation exemplified how Burridge and Marshman perceived interconnections between typewriters and other office equipment. They created early versions of machines that became ubiquitous by mid-century by incrementally resolving workflow friction points.
Burridge passed away in December 1915 at age 72, still tinkering with new inventions in his home workshop. However, his collaborator Marshman continued occasionally consulting about their past patents with aspiring entrepreneurs into the 1920s based on records at London’s Patent Office library.
In 1916, Burridge was even posthumously granted one last patent (US Patent No 1,198,820) for an improved adding and recording machine with enhanced data tables. This final patent served almost as a tribute to his tireless drive towards office efficiency gains.
By the early 1900s, typewriters were becoming smaller, more affordable and mass produced via assembly lines in factories. Although Burridge and Marshman’s boutique operation faded, their mechanical ingenuity and user-centric business focus influenced subsequent generations of office technology.
When later inventors like James Smathers developed the electric typewriter in 1920, designers built upon the foundations that Burridge and Marshman laid in optimizing ribbon mechanisms, keyboard responsiveness and output formatting. Later IBM executives also referenced Burridge & Marshman’s work fusing typewriters, calculators, printers and cash registers as inspirations when conceived their data processing products. It was this idea of unified systems for managing office tasks that pioneering engineers like Burridge and Marshman set into motion.
Pioneers in Context: Burridge, Marshman and Typewriter Evolution
Among legendary typewriter company founders like E. Remington, William Austin Burt, and Christopher Sholes, where exactly do Burridge and Marshman fit?
In the long arc of typing technology evolution, most credit Sholes as “father of the typewriter” for conceiving the first commercially viable machine in 1868. Three decades later, James Smathers took that basic mechanical design powered by electricity. However, in between came the critical role filled by Burridge and Marshman‘s patents.
They advanced Sholes‘ groundbreaking concept and made vital improvements tailored to the growing needs of business offices in speed, ease-of-use and output consistency. Without these incremental but significant advances, typewriter usage may not have become so ubiquitous so rapidly in the business world.
In some parallel universe where Burridge and Marshman never invented, office typing may have remained frustrating with low adoption. By tackling engineering challenges through patents, they elevated quality standards which supported business investment for staff training and equipment purchases. Thus the repetitive keyboarding that became integral to 20th century workplaces owes some debt to the progress driven by their patents.
However, it was Sholes‘ original typewriter idea combined with later electrification that ultimately ushered the true revolution in communication and culture. Burridge and Marshman deserve credit as optimizing experts rather than originators of an entirely new paradigm. Still, businesses relying on ever-growing typing output at the turn of the century – insurance firms processing claims, railroads managing freight etc – benefited directly from the fruits of Burridge & Marshman‘s efforts.
So when considering pivotal figures who shaped the information age, don’t overlook the contributions of early optimization pioneers like Burridge and Marshman. Their engineering creativity boosted productivity gains from business communication tools just as demand dramatically rose.
The Partnership Powering an Office Revolution
In closing, Lee Burridge and Newman Marshman may never become household names in technology history books. They sought no fame or riches from their inventions, simply progress for its own sake. Yet their cumulative improvements undoubtedly accelerated typing’s business benefits and output volumes.
By repeatedly fine-tuning typewriters for speed, precision and reliability based on real-world user needs, Burridge & Marshman boosted adoption rates. Attentiveness to often overlooked details enabled game-changing output when multiplied by thousands of office workers. The bespectacled Marshman supplied commercial aptitude while the restless Burridge provided technical prowess throughout their careers. This allowed pure engineering refinement absent typical market constraints.
Alongside other pioneers of their era, these two inventor-entrepreneurs paved the way for business machines to become office power tools. So next time you sit down to type out an email, document or spreadsheet, spare a thought for the enduring influence of Burridge and Marshman‘s partnership powering the office revolution. Their story represents a pivotal bridging period where TYPEWRITERS + ADDING MACHINES + CASH REGISTERS set in motion the mechanizing of 20th century clerical work leading eventually to modern computing.
