Gottlieb Daimler

Gottlieb Wilhelm Daimler was born on 17 March 1834 in the town of Schorndorf near Stuttgart, Kingdom of Württemberg, a federal state of the German Confederation, in what is now Germany. His parents were Johannes Däumler (Daimler), a baker, and his wife Frederika. By the age of 13 (1847), he had completed six years of primary studies in Lateinschule and became interested in engineering.

After completing secondary school in 1848, Daimler had trained as a gunsmith under Master Gunsmith Hermann Raithel. In 1852 he ended the training with the trade examination. He graduated in 1852, passing the craft test with a pair of engraved double-barreled pistols. The same year, at eighteen, Daimler decided to take up mechanical engineering, abandoning gunsmithing, and left his home town.

Daimler enrolled at Stuttgart's School for Advanced Training in the Industrial Arts, under the tutelage of Ferdinand von Steinbeis. Daimler was studious, even taking extra Sunday morning classes. In 1853, Daimler, with Steinbeis' assistance, got work at "the factory college", Rollé und Schwilque (R&S) in Grafenstaden, so-called because its manager, Friedrich Messmer, had been an instructor at the University of Karlsruhe. Daimler performed well, and when Rollé und Schwilque began making railway locomotives in 1856, Daimler, then 22, was named foreman.

Instead of staying, Daimler took two years at Stuttgart's Polytechnic Institute to hone his skills, gaining in-depth understanding of steam locomotives, as well as "a profound conviction" steam was destined to be superseded. He conceived small, cheap, simple engines for light industrial use, possibly inspired by the newly developed gas engines of that era.

In 1861, he resigned from R&S, visiting Paris, then went on to England, working with the country's top engineering firms, becoming knowledgeable with machine tools. He spent from autumn 1861 to summer 1863 in England, then regarded as "the motherland of technology", at Beyer, Peacock & Company, Manchester, whose partner Beyer was from Saxony. While in London, he visited the 1862 International Exhibition, where one of the exhibits was a steam carriage. These carriages did not evidently inspire him, however, for his wish was to improve machine tools for metal and woodworking machinery.

Daimler went to work for Maschinenfabrik Daniel Straub, Geislingen an der Steige, where he designed tools, mills, and turbines. In 1863, he joined the Bruderhaus Reutlingen, a Christian Socialist toolmaker, as inspector and later executive. While there, he met Wilhelm Maybach, then a 15-year-old orphan. Thanks to Daimler's organisational skills, the factory managed to show a profit, but he quit in frustration in 1869, joining Maschinenbau Gesellschaft Karlsruhe in July.

When in 1872 N.A. Otto and Cie reorganized as Gasmotoren-Fabrik Deutz, management picked Daimler as factory manager, bypassing even Otto, and Daimler joined the company in August, bringing in Maybach as chief designer. While Daimler managed to improve production, the weakness in Otto's vertical piston design, coupled to Daimler's stubborn insistence on atmospheric engines, led the company to an impasse. Neither Otto nor Daimler would give way, and when Daimler was offered the choice of founding a Deutz branch in Saint Petersburg or resigning, he resigned to set up shop in Cannstatt (financed by savings and shares in Deutz), where he was shortly joined by Maybach.