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...