Charles-Edouard Guillaume was born in Fleurier, Switzerland, on February 15, 1861. Guillaume received his high school education at the Neuchâtel gymnasium. At the age of 17, he enrolled in the Zurich Polytechnic (later the Federal Institute of Technology). He rapidly developed an interest in physics, later claiming that François Arago's text, Éloges académiques, was particularly influential on his decision to pursue science as a career. Guillaume was awarded a Ph.D. in 1882 for his thesis on electrolytic capacitors.

Guillaume spent his compulsory year of military service as an artillery officer, during which time he studied mechanics and ballistics. He was then offered a position with the newly created International Bureau of Weights and Measures in Sèvres, France, just outside Paris. He worked there over the next half century, becoming associate director of the bureau in 1902, director in 1905, and finally honorary director upon...