William Church (circa 1778 - 1863) was an American inventor who patented a typesetting machine in 1822, generally considered the first. While living in Boston, he patented the Church Typesetting Machine in England, consisting of a keyboard on which each key released a piece of type of the corresponding letter stored in channels in a magazine. [1] Although he is recorded as having experimented with railway locomotives, it is not clear if he was responsible for the Surprise locomotive which was tried unsuccessfully in the early days of the Lickey Incline in England.
References
- ^ Huss, Richard E. (1976). Dr. Church's "Hoax": An Assessment of Dr. William Church's Typographical Inventions in which is enunciated Church's Law. Graphic Crafts, Inc. ISBN 1299798527
