William Painter (November 20, 1838 – July 15, 1906) was an American

mechanical engineer Mechanical may refer to: Machine * Machine (mechanical), a system of mechanisms that shape the actuator input to achieve a specific application of output forces and movement * Mechanical calculator, a device used to perform the basic operations of ...

inventor An invention is a unique or novel device, method, composition, idea or process. An invention may be an improvement upon a machine, product, or process for increasing efficiency or lowering cost. It may also be an entirely new concept. If an ...

and the founder of Crown Holdings, Inc., a

Fortune 500 The ''Fortune'' 500 is an annual list compiled and published by ''Fortune'' magazine that ranks 500 of the largest United States corporations by total revenue for their respective fiscal years. The list includes publicly held companies, along ...

company. He most notably invented the crown cork bottle cap and bottle opener.

Early life and career

Painter was born in 1838 in Triadelphia, then a mill town in

Montgomery County, Maryland Montgomery County is the most populous county in the state of Maryland. As of the 2020 census, the county's population was 1,062,061, increasing by 9.3% from 2010. The county seat and largest municipality is Rockville, although the census-design ...

to Dr. Edward Painter and Louisa Gilpin Painter. He moved to

Baltimore, Maryland Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the List of municipalities in Maryland, most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, and List of United States cities by popula ...

in 1865 to begin a career as a foreman at the Murrill & Keizer's machine shop. He worked with manufacturers to develop a universal neck for all glass bottles and started the Crown Cork & Seal Company of Baltimore in 1892 to manufacture caps that could be used to seal the universal necks.

Patents

Painter

patented A patent is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of time in exchange for publishing an enabling disclosure of the invention."A p ...

85 inventions, including the common

bottle cap A bottle cap or bottle top is a closure for the top opening of a bottle. A cap is sometimes colourfully decorated with the logo of the brand of contents. Plastic caps are used for plastic bottles, while metal with plastic backing is used for gl ...

, the bottle opener, a machine for crowning bottles, a paper-folding machine, a safety ejection seat for

passenger trains In rail transport, a train (from Old French , from Latin , "to pull, to draw") is a series of connected vehicles that run along a railway track and transport people or freight. Trains are typically pulled or pushed by locomotives (often know ...

, and also a machine for detecting

counterfeit To counterfeit means to imitate something authentic, with the intent to steal, destroy, or replace the original, for use in illegal transactions, or otherwise to deceive individuals into believing that the fake is of equal or greater value tha ...

currency A currency, "in circulation", from la, currens, -entis, literally meaning "running" or "traversing" is a standardization of money in any form, in use or circulation as a medium of exchange, for example banknotes and coins. A more general def ...

. He was inducted to the

National Inventors Hall of Fame The National Inventors Hall of Fame (NIHF) is an American not-for-profit organization, founded in 1973, which recognizes individual engineers and inventors who hold a U.S. patent of significant technology. Besides the Hall of Fame, it also opera ...

in 2006.

References

External links

''William Painter and his father, Dr. Edward Painter: sketches and reminiscences'' by Painter's son, Orrin Chalfant Painter (1914).Painter's obituary in the August 1906 edition of ''The Western Brewer''.Crown Cork Bottle Cap - U.S. Patent #468258.Capped Bottle Opener - U.S. Patent #514200.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Painter, William 19th-century American inventors People from Baltimore 1838 births 1906 deaths Burials at Druid Ridge Cemetery Inventors from Maryland