Sir Hiram Stevens Maxim

Maxim, Sir Hiram Stevens (1840-1916), inventor of the world's most successful machine gun. Born in the USA of Huguenot stock, Maxim was self-educated and had already invented a mousetrap and the world's first automatic fire-sprinkler when, on a business trip to Europe, he was advised by a fellow-countryman: ‘If you really want to make a pile of money, invent something that will enable these Europeans to cut each other's throats with greater facility.’ A sore shoulder after firing a rifle suggested to him that recoil could be put to profitable use, and in 1883-4 he developed a rifle which used the recoil to eject the spent round and chamber a new one. A recoil-operated, belt-fed machine gun with a rate of fire of 600-700 rounds per minute soon followed, and Maxim dealt with the problem of the barrel overheating during sustained firing by surrounding it with a water-filled jacket. The Maxim's reliability and durability commended it to a score of armies. First used, by the British, in the Matabele war of 1893, it was adopted by every major power around the turn of the century. There were national variations, such as the British Vickers-Maxim and the Russian sledge-Maxim, so-called from its sledge-like mounting. Although most of his weapons took rifle-calibre ammunition, a 37 mm version fired shells whose distinctive explosions earned it the name ‘pom-pom’. Maxim died, loaded with cash and honours, as his inventions cut a swathe through European manhood.

— Richard Holmes

Born in Maine, Maxim's early work focused on electrical design and the incandescent light bulb. In the early 1880s, he moved to London as representative of the U.S. Electric Lighting Company. As a sideline, he experimented with early machine guns. In 1885, Maxim developed a single‐barrel weapon that could fire 500 rounds of ammunition a minute. Although not the first machine gun, the Maxim gun, as it was called, remained vastly superior to the earlier multibarreled hand‐cranked Gatling gun (1862) and the Nordenfelt gun (1877). An avid promoter, Maxim effectively cultivated support from the British royal family and other influential Britons, which helped promote the adoption of the Maxim gun by the British army (1889) and the Royal Navy (1892). His company was consolidated with the Vickers Company in 1896. He became a British subject in 1900 and was knighted in 1901. His brother, Hudson Maxim (1853–1927), remained in the United States and developed a high explosive (Maximite). Despite the technical superiority of the Maxim gun, the U.S. Army resisted using it until 1904.

Neither Maxim nor most military men initially recognized the revolutionary impact the Maxim gun would have on the nature of battle. Although the machine gun would be used with deadly effectiveness by British imperial forces in suppressing colonial insurrections in Africa, few anticipated its extensive use in European warfare beginning in World War I.

Bibliography

• Hiram S. Maxim, My Life, 1915.
• John Ellis, The Social History of the Machine Gun, 1975

Maxim, Sir Hiram S. (1840-1916) self-taught engineer and inventor of the first automatic machine gun. Maxim, born Hiram Stevens Maxim near Sangersville, Maine, became a British subject. He had first focused his inventive efforts on the incandescent light bulb, experimenting with machine guns only on the side. His Maxim gun was not the first machine gun, but it was vastly superior to its predecessors. In 1889 it was adopted by the British army, which used it extensively in suppressing colonial insurrections. Its revolutionary impact on warfare was not immediately recognized.

See the Introduction, Abbreviations and Pronunciation for further details.

The American-born British inventor Sir Hiram Stevens Maxim (1840-1916) is chiefly known for the automatic rifle, or machine gun, that bears his name.

Hiram Stevens Maxim was born near Sangerville, Maine, on Feb. 5, 1840. He received only a common-school education while working on his father's farm, but he spent his spare time studying science. At the age of 14 he was apprenticed to a carriage builder and later worked in his uncle's engineering firm in Fitchburg, Mass.

Moving to Boston, Maxim was employed in a scientific instrument shop, during which time (1866) he received his first patent, for an improved curling iron. Soon he became a draftsman with a New York shipbuilding firm where he invented many items, including a locomotive headlight. In 1878 he was appointed chief engineer of the first electric lighting company in the United States, and he soon produced a new type of filament for an incandescent light (the Maxim lamp). Maxim represented the electric lighting company at the Paris Exposition of 1881, where he was honored for still another invention, his electric pressure regulator.

In 1881 Maxim took up residence in England. He began to experiment on ways to improve weapons and in 1883 developed an automatic gun based on an entirely new principle. It used the recoil of the gun to advance the cartridge belt automatically. The Maxim gun could fire 666 rounds a minute and wold not jam from hasty operation by its handler. At first Maxim produced the gun himself, but his company merged with the Nordenfeldt company in 1888 and with Vickers in 1896. The Maxim gun was adopted for use by armies all over the world. For this and other inventions, Maxim was knighted by Queen Victoria in 1901.

A gifted and versatile inventor, Maxim received 122 United States patents and 149 British patents. He devoted much time and money near the turn of the century to aeronautical experiments. An airship he built in 1894 to study the lift and thrust of various wing shapes and propellers actually rose from the ground, but he had not developed methods for controlling his machine in the air and did not achieve manned flight. He had, however, using an incredibly heavy, steam-propelled machine, proved that mechanical flight in heavier-than-air machines was possible.

Maxim was a brilliant, artistic, and accomplished man, although it was difficult for others to get along with him. He was opinionated and self-centered, and even his younger brother Hudson, also an inventor, found him impossible as a colleague. Twice married, Maxim had two children; his son, Hiram Percy Maxim, became well known as an inventor in his own right. Maxim died in Streatham, London, on Nov. 24, 1916.

Further Reading

The sources on Maxim's life are limited. The only relatively complete account is by Maxim himself, My Life (1915). But see also his brother's reminiscences in Clifton Johnson, ed., The Rise of an American Inventor: Hudson Maxim's Life Story (1927), and Hiram P. Maxim, A Genius in the Family: Sir Hiram Stevens Maxim through a Small Son's Eyes (1936). There is a critical account of the machine gun and its inventor in H. C. Engelbrecht and F. C. Hanighen, Merchants of Death (1934). For Maxim's aeronautical work see his own Artificial and Natural Flight (1908); R. P. Hearne, Airships in Peace and War (1910), which has an introduction by Maxim; and various histories of flight, such as Archibald Black, The Story of Flying (1940), and the illustrated American Heritage History of Flight (1962), by the editors of American Heritage.

For more information on Sir Hiram Stevens Maxim, visit Britannica.com.

Hiram Stevens Maxim
Born	February 5, 1840 Sangerville, Maine
Died	November 24, 1916 London
Resting place	West Norwood Cemetery
Occupation	Inventor
Children	Hiram Percy Maxim
Relatives	Hudson Maxim (brother)

This article is about Hiram Stevens Maxim. For his son, who wrote "Horseless Carriage Days," see Hiram Percy Maxim.

Sir Hiram Stevens Maxim (February 5, 1840 – November 24, 1916) was the inventor of the Maxim Gun in 1881, the first portable, fully automatic machine gun, and the ubiquitous mousetrap. He also experimented in powered flight, but his large aircraft designs were never successful. However, his "Captive Flying Machine" amusement ride became a staple of British fairgrounds.

Birth

1895 .303 tripod mounted Maxim machine gun. Photo: Max Smith

Maxim's flying machine

Maxim machine gun mounted on a Dunonald gun carriage

Maxim was born in Sangerville, Maine in the United States of America. He became an apprentice coachbuilder at the age of 14 and ten years later took up a job at the machine works of his uncle, Levi Stephens, at Fitchburg, Massachusetts. He subsequently worked as an instrument maker and as a draughtsman.

Children

His children include: Hiram Percy Maxim; and Percy Maxim, who married George Albert Cutter. ^[1]

Inventions

Maxim is also credited with inventing the common mousetrap and, as a long-time sufferer from bronchitis, he also patented and manufactured the "Pipe of Peace", a menthol inhaler. Over the years he was involved in several patent disputes with Thomas Edison. One of these included the incandescent lightbulb.

Emigration

Maxim emigrated to England in 1881 (by which time he'd given up trying to sell his bulb when it became clear Edison had won) and became a naturalized Briton in 1899. Queen Victoria knighted Maxim in 1901 for his inventions, many of which had military applications. Maxim founded an armaments company to produce his machine gun in Crayford, Kent, which was later bought out by the Vickers corporation in 1896, becoming 'Vickers, Son & Maxim'. Their updated version of the design, referred to as the Vickers gun, was the standard British machine gun for many years. Variants of the Maxim gun were used extensively by both sides during World War I. His brother Hudson Maxim was also a military inventor, specializing in explosives.

Grahame-White, Bleriot, and Maxim Company

In 1911 he headed the newly formed Grahame-White, Bleriot, and Maxim Company, founded with the two aviators and two hundred thousand pounds of capital. ^[2]

Death

Maxim died in London and is buried in West Norwood Cemetery. His son Hiram Percy Maxim followed in his father and uncle's footsteps and became a mechanical engineer and weapons designer as well, but he is perhaps best known for his early amateur radio experiments and for founding the American Radio Relay League. ^[3] Hiram was a mechanical engineering graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Patents

• U.S. Patent   - Electric lamp
• U.S. Patent   - Electric lamp
• U.S. Patent   - Electric lamps
• U.S. Patent   - Process for removing air from globes of electric lamps
• U.S. Patent   - Electric lamp
• U.S. Patent   - Electrical lamp
• U.S. Patent   - Process of manufacturing carbon conductors
• U.S. Patent  
• U.S. Patent  
• U.S. Patent  
• U.S. Patent  
• U.S. Patent  
• U.S. Patent   - Electrical meter
• U.S. Patent  
• U.S. Patent  
• U.S. Patent  
• U.S. Patent  
• U.S. Patent   - Manufacture of explosive
• U.S. Patent   - Motor vehicle
• U.S. Patent  
• U.S. Patent  
• U.S. Patent   - Motor vehicle running gear
• U.S. Patent   - Electric motor vehicle
• U.S. Patent   - Motor road vehicle

• GB189700207 (1897 with Louis Silverman) - automatic fire mechanism
• GB189607468 (1897) - gas action for machine guns
• GB189607045 (1897) - breech mechanism of machine gun

References

1. ^ "Hiram Percy Maxim, Wireless Amateur No. 1, Defended Rights of Youth", New York Times, February 23, 1936, Sunday. Retrieved on 2007-08-21. “Radio amateurs, numbering more than 45,000 in the United States, are mourning the loss of a friend and faithful ally in the passing of Hiram Percy Maxim of Hartford, Connecticut. As an ardent wireless amateur Mr. Maxim is remembered by veteran experimenters of pre-war days by the musical tone of his quench spark gap which spelled out the call letters of his pioneer station.” 
2. ^ "Maxim Leads Air Company. Grahame-White, Bleriot and Maxim Company with $1,000,000 Capital.", New York Times. Retrieved on 2007-08-21. “Sir Hiram Maxim, who has just resigned from the ordnance firm with which his name has been for so long connected, will be the Chairman of a new company to be known as the Grahame-White, Bleriot, and Maxim Company, limited, with a total authorized capital of 200,000 ($1,000,000.)” 
3. ^ "Noise's Bogeyman", Time (magazine), Monday, January 4, 1932. Retrieved on 2007-08-21. “While mental hygienists, efficiency experts and city officials have been bewailing the maddening effects of city noise, Hiram Percy Maxim has been manufacturing noise mufflers at Hartford, Conn. Last week he announced that his Maxim Silencer Co., of which he is president and his only son Hiram Hamilton is chief engineer and whose factory is in Asylum Street, Hartford, will—besides continuing to make silencers for guns, motor exhausts, safety valves, air releases, in fact every kind of pipe which emits a gas—offer a consulting service in noise abatement.” 

External links

• A Tale of Two Knights: Sir Hiram Maxim
• H.Maxim and A.Liwentaal

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