Henry Timken (August 16, 1831 in Bremen,

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

– March 16, 1909 in

San Diego, California San Diego ( , ; ) is a city on the Pacific Ocean coast of Southern California located immediately adjacent to the Mexico–United States border. With a 2020 population of 1,386,932, it is the eighth most populous city in the United Stat ...

) was an inventor and businessman who founded the Timken Roller Bearing Company, later called the

Timken Company The Timken Company is a global manufacturer of bearings and power transmission products. Timken operates from 42 countries. Company history In 1898, Henry Timken obtained a patent for an improved tapered roller bearing, and in 1899 incorporat ...

. His family migrated to the United States when he was 7 years old. He began his business career in the

St. Louis St. Louis () is the second-largest city in Missouri, United States. It sits near the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a population of 301,578, while the bi-state metropolitan area, which e ...

region. His inventions of an improved carriage spring and an improved

roller bearing In mechanical engineering, a rolling-element bearing, also known as a rolling bearing, is a bearing which carries a load by placing rolling elements (such as balls or rollers) between two concentric, grooved rings called races. The relative m ...

brought him the money needed to create a company dedicated to the latter.

Biography

Henry Timken was born in Bremen, now in

, and emigrated to the United States with his family when he was seven years old. The Timkens settled in

Sedalia, Missouri Sedalia is a city located approximately south of the Missouri River and, as the county seat of Pettis County, Missouri, United States, it is the principal city of the Sedalia Micropolitan Statistical Area. As of the 2010 census, the city had ...

; Henry left the family farm to apprentice under carriage-builder Caspar Schurmeier. Timken opened his own carriage-building company in

in 1855, and introduced several improvements to the carriages his firm produced, including his patented "Timken buggy spring", which made him a fortune. He patented an improved

tapered roller bearing Tapered roller bearings are rolling element bearings that can support axial forces (i.e., they are good thrust bearings) as well as radial forces. Description The inner and outer ring raceways are segments of cones and the rollers are taper ...

in 1898. A year later, he established the '' Timken Roller Bearing Axle Company'' which grew rapidly as the product was in great demand by cars, trucks, and tractors. By 1923, 90% of the country's production of bearings came from Timken. His slogan "''Wherever wheels and shafts turn''", describes the widespread use for bearings—trains, conveyors, elevators, aircraft engines, even space shuttle landing wheels. He first retired in 1887 and settled in

San Diego San Diego ( , ; ) is a city on the Pacific Ocean coast of Southern California located immediately adjacent to the Mexico–United States border. With a 2020 population of 1,386,932, it is the eighth most populous city in the United State ...

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...

, but regretted retiring in 1891 and went back to St Louis. He later returned to San Diego for a second retirement before dying there in 1909. His last residence still stands, and is known as Timken House. The nearby

Timken Museum of Art The Timken Museum of Art is a fine art museum, established in 1965 and located at 1500 El Prado in Balboa Park in San Diego, California, close to the San Diego Museum of Art. History The groundwork for the museum was laid in 1951 when Walter ...

in Balboa Park bears his family's name, as it was established with his fortune.

Honors

Timken was inducted into 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 oper ...

on September 19, 1998. Henry Timken was one of six inducted into the hall of fame at ceremonies done at the E J Thomas Hall in

Akron, Ohio Akron () is the fifth-largest city in the U.S. state of Ohio and is the county seat of Summit County. It is located on the western edge of the Glaciated Allegheny Plateau, about south of downtown Cleveland. As of the 2020 Census, the city prop ...

. William Robert Timken Jr., Timken's great-grandson, the retired chairman and chief executive officer of The Timken Co, and who was the

United States Ambassador to Germany The United States has had diplomatic relations with the nation of Germany and its principal predecessor nation, the Kingdom of Prussia, since 1835. These relations were broken twice (1917 to 1921, and 1941 to 1955) while Germany and the United St ...

, received the award on behalf of his great-grandfather.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Timken, Henry 1831 births 1909 deaths Businesspeople from St. Louis German emigrants to the United States People from Canton, Ohio 19th-century American businesspeople