Henry R. Towne | |
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| Born | Henry Robinson Towne (1844-08-24)August 24, 1844 |
| Died | October 15, 1924(1924-10-15) (aged 80) New York City, U.S. |
| Occupation | Mechanical engineer |
| Known for | Yale & Towne Manufacturing Co. |
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Henry Robinson Towne (August 24, 1844 – October 15, 1924) was an Americanmechanical engineer and businessman, known as an early systematizer of management.[1][2] He donated several millions to philanthropy at his death, in 1924.[3]
Towne was born in Philadelphia in 1844 to John Henry and Maria (Tevis) T. Towne.[4] He attended theUniversity of Pennsylvania from 1861 to 1862, where he was a member ofSt. Anthony Hall,[5] but did not complete a degree. The university later awarded him an honorary master's degree.
Following his year of college, Towne found work as a draftsman at thePort RichmondIron Works, which was owned by I. P. Morris, Towne & Co.[4] In 1863, Towne was put in charge of repair work for the union gunboatMassachusetts. During 1864-1866, Towne was placed in charge of erecting engines inmonitors for theUnited States Navy. After the war, Towne went to Paris and studied physics at theSorbonne. When he returned, he found employment with the firm ofWilliam Sellers & Co., inPhiladelphia.
In the summer of 1868, Henry R. Towne was introduced toLinus Yale Jr. by a mutual friend.[4] Towne was, by this time, looking for a newbusiness opportunity and had become impressed about the possibilities of Yale's new "cylinder" lock. In October 1868, the two men formed theYale Lock Manufacturing Company, to be located inStamford, Connecticut.[4] Towne provided new capital and management of the firm, and Yale the invention.[7] Yale died later in 1868, and Towne reorganized the company asYale & Towne Manufacturing Co. with Linus's son,John B. Yale, as treasurer.
By 1892, he was recorded as a millionaire in the American Millionaires list book.[8] He stepped down as chairman of the company in 1915. Board members of the company included ex President ofStudebaker,Albert Russel Erskine, CongressmanSchuyler Merritt, and others.[9]
Within this time-frame he developed the Towne-Halsey plan. According toF.W. Taylor and mentioned in his bookScientific Management "it consists in recording the quickest time in which a job has been done, and fixing this as a standard.
If the workman succeeds in doing the job in a shorter time, he is still paid his same wages per hour for the time he works on the job, and in addition is given a premium for having worked faster, consisting of from one-quarter to one-half the difference between the wages earned and the wages originally paid when the job was done in standard time."[10]
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Towne was one of the first engineers to see management as a new social role for engineers and that the development of management techniques was important for the development of the engineering profession. He laid out his ideas about the management role for the engineer in his "The Engineer as Economist." He was electedPresident of theASME in 1888, and his presidential address continued to address how to improve shop and worker efficiency (see "Gain-Sharing").
Towne andLink-Belt presidentJames Mapes Dodge were responsible for maneuveringFrederick Winslow Taylor to the Presidency of the ASME in 1906 (Noble, ABD, 269-270). Taylor was the author ofThe Principles of Scientific Management.
Henry R. Towne died in New York City on October 15, 1924.[11][12] His wife Cora E. White, whom he had married in 1868, died in 1917. His estates was valued at several millions and the bulk of it was given to museums of peaceful arts, or industrial museums, for the citizens of New York.[13]
In hiswill, Towne bequeathed $1,000,000 for the establishment of theMuseums of the Peaceful Arts in Manhattan, $2,500,000 for the, "creation of a technical museum" that became theNew York Museum of Science and Industry, $50,000 for education programs, the same amount to an Engineering Fund, $10,000 to theFranklin Institute of Philadelphia, the same amount toNew York University, and many others.[14][15][16]
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