peoplepill id: william-hillman
WH
United Kingdom Great Britain
1 views today
1 views this week
William Hillman
British businessman

William Hillman

The basics

Quick Facts

Intro
British businessman
Work field
Gender
Male
Place of birth
Stratford
Age
72 years
The details (from wikipedia)

Biography

William Hillman (13 November 1848 – 4 February 1921) was a British bicycle and automobile manufacturer. In partnership with Louis Coatalen he founded the Hillman-Coatalen Company in 1907, later the Hillman Motor Company after Coatalen's defection to Sunbeam in 1909.

Early life

Hillman was born on 13 November 1848 in Stratford, Essex, where his father, also called William, was a shoemaker; his mother was Sarah Stitchbury. He became an apprentice in the engineering works of John Penn & Co. at Greenwich together with his friend James Starley, who became known as "the father of the cycle industry". Hillman and Starley moved to the expanding industrial area of the English Midlands, where they were employed by the Coventry Sewing Machine Company. Sales of sewing machines had declined, and to compensate the company had become the first British manufacturers of bicycles, using designs based on French "boneshakers". The Franco-Prussian War of 1870 halted bicycle manufacture in France and led to a boom in British production. Hillman set up his own bicycle manufacturing company in 1875, Auto Machinery, in partnership with W. H. Herbert, who provided the capital.

Career

As well as bicycles Hillman's company made roller-skates, sewing machines, and ball and roller bearings, of which it pioneered the mass production; Hillman was soon operating four factories in Coventry, and by 1896 a fifth in Germany. His success made him a millionaire, and allowed him to move to Abingdon House, an "impressive home" in Stoke Aldermoor, now a suburb of Coventry.

The contents of this page are sourced from Wikipedia article. The contents are available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license.
Lists
William Hillman is in following lists
comments so far.
Comments
From our partners
Sponsored
William Hillman
arrow-left arrow-right instagram whatsapp myspace quora soundcloud spotify tumblr vk website youtube pandora tunein iheart itunes