Hiram Maxim, American-Anglo Inventor
Hiram Stevens Maxim (1840 - 1916), American-born inventor. In 1881, Maxim arrived in England in order to reorganize the London offices of the U.S. Electric Lighting Company. In 1900 he became a naturalized British subject. Maxim was the inventor of the Maxim Gun, the first portable, fully automatic machine gun, and an elaborate mousetrap. He laid a claim to inventing the lightbulb, and even experimented with powered flight, but his large aircraft designs were never successful. He also invented a curling iron, an apparatus for demagnetizing watches, magno-electric machines, devices to prevent the rolling of ships, eyelet and riveting machines, aircraft artillery, an aerial torpedo gun, coffee substitutes, and various oil, steam, and gas engines. Maxim, a long-time sufferer from bronchitis, patented and manufactured a pocket menthol inhaler and a larger Pipe of Peace, a steam inhaler using pine vapor, that he claimed could relieve asthma, tinnitus, hay fever and catarrh. Queen Victoria bestowed a knighthood upon him, but the actual knighting was done by Edward VII. He died in 1916 at the age of 76
