Hiram Stevens Maxim

Hiram Stevens Maxim was born in Sangerville, Maine, on 5 February 1840, into a family of French Huguenot origin. He became an apprentice coachbuilder at the age of 14 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 draughtsman. His early jobs in these areas led him to be often disappointed with workers when he ran his own companies later on in life. Hiram called himself a Protestant.

His brother, Hudson Maxim, was also a military inventor, specializing in explosives. They worked quite closely together until later in life, when there was a disagreement on a patent for smokeless powder. The patent, Hiram claimed, had been issued under the name 'H. Maxim,' and that because of this, his brother was able to stake a claim as the powder being his own. Hudson was a skilled and knowledgeable man, and sold arms in the US, while Hiram worked mainly in Europe. Hudson had success in the States, which caused jealousy from Hiram (he lamented having a "double" of himself running around in the States). The jealousy and disagreements caused a rift between the brothers that would last the rest of their lives.

Hiram Maxim married his first wife, the English-born Jane Budden, on 11 May 1867 in Boston, Massachusetts. Their children were: Hiram Percy Maxim; Florence Maxim, who married George Albert Cutter, and Adelaide Maxim, who married Eldon Joubert, Ignacy Jan Paderewski's piano tuner. In 1875, the family moved to Fanwood, New Jersey, with Hiram joining the family on weekends.

His son Hiram Percy Maxim followed in his father's and uncle's footsteps and became a mechanical engineer and weapons designer as well, but he is perhaps best known for his early amateur radio experiments and for founding the American Radio Relay League. His invention of the "Maxim Silencer" for noise suppression came too late to save his father's hearing. Hiram Percy later wrote a biography of his father titled A Genius in the Family, containing about 60 anecdotes of Hiram Percy's experiences with his father throughout his early life (until about age 12). Most of these short stories are entertaining; they give a reader an insider's (and a child's) view of the man's personal and family life. So Goes My Love, a film loosely based on these memoirs and starring Don Ameche and Myrna Loy, was released in 1946.

Hiram Maxim married his secretary and mistress, Sarah, daughter of Charles Haynes of Boston, in 1881. It is not clear if he was legally divorced from his first wife at this time. The marriage was registered again in Westminster, London in 1890.

A woman called Helen Leighton brought a case against Maxim, claiming that he had married her in 1878 and that "he was knowingly committing bigamy" against his current wife, Jane Budden. She claimed further that Maxim had fathered a child named Romaine by her. The case was eventually dropped, being settled for under $1,000 (the original amount asked for was $25,000), and Maxim put behind him the near public humiliation the case caused. In October 1898, Helen Leighton again brought charges against Maxim for bigamy and abandonment in Poughkeepsie, New York. Later in life, he left 4,000 pounds sterling to a Romaine Dennison, perhaps the child Leighton claimed he had fathered.