William Seward Burroughs I

Inventor

In 1875, he started working as a bank clerk. Much of his job consisted of laboriously reviewing ledgers for errors. Burroughs then became interested in developing an adding machine. At the bank, there had been a number of prototypes, but in inexperienced hands, they would sometimes give incorrect answers. Burroughs did not find his clerical work agreeable, as he was fond of mechanics. He resigned after seven years working as a clerk.

In the early 1880s, Burroughs was advised by a doctor to move to an area with a warmer climate. He moved to St. Louis, Missouri where he worked in the Boyer Machine Shop. These new surroundings hastened the development of an existing idea: an adding machine. His new job gave him the opportunity to build his prototype. Accuracy was the foundation of his work. He made his design drawings on metal plates to prevent distortion.

Burroughs filed his first patent for the invention of a "calculating machine" in 1885. It was designed to ease the monotony of clerical arithmetic. By 1890, they were well known in the banking industry, and adoption spread.

Burroughs was the son of a mechanic and worked with machines throughout his childhood. While a small boy, his parents moved to Auburn, New York, where he and his brothers were educated in public schools.

He married his wife, Ida (née Selover) in 1879. They had two sons and two daughters: Jennie, Horace, Mortimer (father of William S. Burroughs II), and Helen.