Known as the "father of Swedish mechanics" and as the "Archimedes of the North," Christopher Polhem promoted the use of waterpower to replace human labor, establishing a factory to employ this technique for manufacturing tools of his own invention. He also believed in the division of labor, some two centuries before this concept gained common acceptance as the most efficient means of production.
Polhem was born on December 18, 1661, in Visby, on Gotland Island in Sweden. His father, the merchant Wolf Christopher Polhamma, died when Polhem was eight years old. Polhem’s stepfather sent him to an uncle in Stockholm, where he received his education at the Deutsche Rechenschule. However, when his uncle died, Polhem had to abandon school for work, which he found near Uppsala, as an estate bailiff for the Biorenklou family. He also honed his carpentry and mechanical skills at the lathe and the forge, which would prove important later, as he made all his own instruments.
In 1687, Polhem entered the University of Uppsala, where he studied astronomy and mathematics. He also applied his mechanical skills repairing clocks—two astronomical pendulum clocks and a dilapidated clock in a medieval cathedral. The latter job, which took more than a year to complete, established his reputation, earning him a 500-daler salary from the king of Sweden to support continued mechanical experimentation and work.
Polhem’s reputation extended beyond Sweden’s borders with the installation of the Blankstot hoist at the Stora Kopparberg mine in 1693, an engineering feat. He spent the next several years, from 1694 through 1696, entertaining invitations to tour factories, mills, and mines in Germany, Holland, England, and France, where he soaked up various diverse mechanical methods and instrument designs.
Upon his return to Sweden in 1697, Pol-hem established the Laboratorium Mecanicum, a mechanical laboratory. There, he invented new mechanical techniques, including brick-, barrel-, and wheel-making, bell-casting, organ building, and such oddities as a tap "to prevent serving maids from sneaking wine from the cask." He also designed hoisting devices, mine pumps, and the Polhemsknut, a flexible shaft coupling.
The next year, the state of Sweden appointed Polhem as its director of mining engineering. In this position, he drew up plans to power all the machines at the Falu mine with three large, remote waterwheels; however, he never completed this project. Later in his career, he planned to build a canal between Goteborg and the Baltic Sea, but he never completed this project either. However, he did design and oversee the construction of two sluices, the first in Stockholm, and the second, named the Polhem sluice, in Trollhattan.
Polhem strongly believed in the replacement of human labor with waterpower, and he applied this theory in the founding of a water-powered tool-manufacturing factory in Stjarn-sund at Husby in southern Dalarna in 1700. He designed all the production machinery, developing numerous innovations that improved efficiency. The factory produced a wide variety of tools and implements, such as knives, scissors, pans, bowls, and trays, as well as Polhem locks (or burglarproof locks) and Stjarnsund pendulum clocks. Water powered all the mechanical processes—cutting gears for the clocks, shaping hammers for plates, and mill-rolling sheet metal. Also in 1700, he was appointed master of construction for the Falu mine, where he installed a Karl XII hoist.
In 1707, the elector of Hannover invited Polhem to visit mines of the Harz district, where he continued to absorb new information, such as mining methods. A decade later, in 1716, Frederick I of Sweden knighted him in recognition of his contributions to Swedish society. He also contributed outside of Swedish society, building a minting machine for George I of England.
Polhem wrote incessantly, producing some 20,000 pages of manuscripts. His 1729 book, A Brief Account of the Most Famous Inventions, recorded his essential work. Polhem died on August 30, 1751, in Tingstade, Sweden. However, his legacy lived on into the 21st century, as a team of Swedish computer engineers honored his memory for 3Dwm who named some of their software after Polhem in recognition of his significance as an inventor. He is also enshrined at the Historical Museum of Gotland, which devotes an entire room to Polhem’s technical inventions.
