1683?-1771

English engineer who invented the first typewriter in 1714. Although most of the details of Mill's machine are unknown and it never became popular in its time, the typewriter and its successors later proved to be tremendously important devices. In the patent granted to Mill by Queen Anne, it was noted that Mill's machine made counterfeiting more difficult, and made reading and writing easier because any person could set down on paper letters that were "so neat and exact as not to be distinguished from print."