Hiram Stevens Maxim patents gas, recoil and…

Hiram Stevens Maxim patents gas, recoil and blow-back methods of operation between 1883 and 1885 to operate a gun automatically.

Born in Sangerville, Maine in the United States in 1840, had become an apprentice coachbuilder at the age of fourteen and ten years later took up a job at the machine works of his uncle, Levi Stephens, at Fitchburg, Massachusetts.

He subsequently worked as an instrument maker and as a draftsman. (His early jobs in these arenas will lead him to often be disappointed with workers when he runs his own companies later on in life.)

His brother, Hudson Maxim, is also a military inventor, specializing in explosives.

They worked quite closely together until later in life, when there was a disagreement on a patent of smokeless powder.

The patent, Hiram claimed, had been put under the name 'H. Maxim,' and that because of this, his brother was able to stake a claim at the powder being his own.

Hudson, a skilled and knowledgeable man, sells armaments in the U. S., while Hiram works mainly in Europe.

Hudson has success in the States, which causes jealousy from Hiram (he laments having "a double" of himself running around in the States).

The jealousy and disagreements cause a rift between the brothers that will last the rest of their lives.

Maxim had developed and installed the first electric lights in a New York City building (the Equitable Life Building at 120 Broadway) in the late 1870s.

However, he was involved in several lengthy patent disputes with Thomas Edison over his claims to the light bulb.

One of these actions regarded the incandescent bulb, for which Maxim claimed that Edison was credited by means of his better understanding of patenting law (though in England Joseph Wilson Swan had already obtained the first patent in 1878).

He claimed an employee of his (Maxim's) had falsely patented the invention under his own name, and that Edison proved the employee's claim to be false, knowing that patent law would mean the invention would become public property, allowing Edison to manufacture the light bulb without crediting Maxim as the true inventor.

He married his first wife, Jane Budden, in 1867, with whom he has had three children.

He had married his second wife, Sarah, daughter of Charles Hayes of Boston, in 1881.

It is not clear if he was legally divorced from his first wife at this time.

Maxim had arrived in England in 1881 in order to reorganize the London offices of the U.S. Electric Lighting Company.

As a child, Maxim had been knocked over by a rifle's recoil, and this has inspired him to use that recoil force to automatically operate a gun.

After moving to England, he settles in a large house formerly owned by Lord Thurlow in West Norwood, where he develops his design for an automatic weapon, using an action that closes the breech and compresses a spring, by storing the recoil energy released by a shot to prepare the gun for its next shot.

He had thoughtfully run announcements in the local press warning that he would be experimenting with the gun in his garden and that neighbors should keep their windows open to avoid the danger of broken glass.