Hans Renold
Hans Renold (31 July 1852 - 2 May 1943) was a Swiss/British engineer, inventor and industrialist in Britain, who founded the Renold manufacturing textile-chain making business in 1879, and with Alexander Hamilton Church[1][2] is credited for introducing scientific management to England.[3][4]
Biography
Born in Aarau, Switzerland in a burgher family in Aarau, Switzerland, Renold came to Manchester, England in 1873 at the age of 21 and found work with a firm of machinery exporters.
In 1879 Renold purchased a small textile-chain making business in Salford, England from James Slater and so founded the Hans Renold Co. Renold had long been devoted to the ideal of establishing a firm sense of community among his employees and their families and in 1909 gave his active support to the establishment of the Hans Renold Social Union for the encouragement of a wide range of leisure activities.
Hans Renold and his first wife Mary Susan Herford (1855-1919) had six children: Mary Katharine Renold, Charles Garonne Renold, Amy Madeleine Renold, Mary Robberds Renold (died young), Hans Herford Renold (died young) and Austen Hugh Renold. After his death in 1943, Priestnall Hey, his former home adjacent to the Renold works at Burnage, was presented by his son for the use of the Social Union.
Work
The Hans Renold Co. started as small textile-chain making business in 1879. The following year in 1880 he invented the Bush Roller chain which represented a great advance on the common pin-and-link chains of the day and which laid the design foundation upon which all modern precision roller chains are based.
The firm registered as the public company Hans Renold Ltd. in 1903, merged to Renold and Coventry Chain Co. Ltd in 1930, and renamed to Renold Ltd. in 1967, and later became Renold PLC. Nowadays the company still bears his name.[5]
Renold was not only a brilliant engineer and a model employer who built around him a very skilled labour force, but was also a very astute businessman. Starting with £300 borrowed from his prospective father-in-law, Hans Renold's business prospered and he steadily ploughed back his growing profits into premises and plant. In 1889 a rapid expansion of the business took place and a new factory was built.
Patents
- Renold, Hans. "Driving-chain." U.S. Patent No. 690,317. 31 Dec. 1901.
- Renold, Hans. "A Corpora." U.S. Patent No. 690,318. 31 Dec. 1901.
- Renold, Hans. "Driving-chain" HANS RENOLD." U.S. Patent No. 1,134,010. 30 Mar. 1915.
- Renold, Hans. "Driving-chain of the silent type." U.S. Patent No. 1180539. April 25, 1916.
References
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- ↑ Urwick, Lyndall Fownes, and Edward Franz Leopold Brech. The making of scientific management. Vol. 2. Management publications trust, 1945.
- ↑ Richard Vangermeersch (1996) "Church, Alexander Hamilton (1866-1936." In History of Accounting: An International Encyclopedia, edited by Michael Chatfield and Richard Vangermeersch. New York: Garland Publishing, 1996. p. 124.
- ↑ History of Renolds at renold.com. Accessed 11.2014.
