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 also known as Taylorism to England. [3] [4]
Renold was born in Aarau, Switzerland into a burgher family of that town. He attended the polytechnic school in Zurich, then worked in a drawing office in St. Denis, Seine, France.
Renold came to London, England, and soon after to Manchester, Lancashire, in 1873 at the age of 21 and found work with a firm of machinery exporters.
In 1879, with £300 borrowed from his prospective father-in-law, Renold purchased a small textile-chain making business in Salford, Lancashire, from James Slater and started the Hans Renold business.
Hans Renold and his first wife Mary Susan Herford (1855-1919), were married in 1880, and 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. He married Rowena Hague Pigott (1874-1962) in 1923.
Soon after starting the business in 1879, in 1880 Hans Renold invented the bush roller chain. This represented a great advance on the common pin-and-link chains of the day and laid the design foundation upon which all modern precision roller chains are based. The firm immediately extended its business from textile chains into cycle chains for the new safety bicycle invented by J. K. Starley.
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. His business prospered and he steadily ploughed back his growing profits into premises and plant. He moved the business to Brook Street, Manchester in 1881. In 1889 a rapid expansion of the business took place and a new factory, Progress Works, was built in Brook Street. In 1906, Hans Renold planned and started construction of Renold Works on open land at Burnage, five miles to the south of Manchester.
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.
After his death in 1943, Priestnall Hey, his former home in Heaton Mersey adjacent to Renold Works at Burnage, was presented by his son for the use of the Hans Renold Social Union.
Hans Renold Limited was formed as a private limited company in 1903. It merged with The Coventry Chain Company Limited and was registered as a public limited company named Renold and Coventry Chain Company Limited in 1930. It was renamed Renold Ltd. in 1967, and later became Renold PLC. Nowadays the company still bears his name. [5]
Frederick Winslow Taylor was an American mechanical engineer. He was widely known for his methods to improve industrial efficiency. He was one of the first management consultants. In 1911, Taylor summed up his efficiency techniques in his book The Principles of Scientific Management which, in 2001, Fellows of the Academy of Management voted the most influential management book of the twentieth century. His pioneering work in applying engineering principles to the work done on the factory floor was instrumental in the creation and development of the branch of engineering that is now known as industrial engineering. Taylor made his name, and was most proud of his work, in scientific management; however, he made his fortune patenting steel-process improvements.
Burnage is a suburb of the city of Manchester in North West England, about 4 miles (6.4 km) south of Manchester city centre and bisected by the dual carriageway of Kingsway. Within the boundaries of the historic county of Lancashire, the population of the Burnage Ward at the 2011 census was 15,227. It lies between Withington to the west, Levenshulme to the north, Heaton Chapel to the east and Didsbury and Heaton Mersey to the south.
Lyndall Fownes Urwick was a British management consultant and business thinker. He is recognised for integrating the ideas of earlier theorists like Henri Fayol into a comprehensive theory of management administration. He wrote an influential book called The Elements of Business Administration, published in 1943. With Luther Gulick, he founded the academic journal Administrative Science Quarterly.
Wilhelm Normann was a German chemist who introduced the hydrogenation of fats in 1901, creating what later became known as trans fats. This invention, protected by German patent 141,029 in 1902, had a profound influence on the production of margarine and vegetable shortening.
Alexander Hamilton Church was an English efficiency engineer, accountant and writer on accountancy and management, known for his seminal work of management and cost accounting.
Leon Pratt Alford was an American mechanical engineer, organizational theorist, and administrator for the American Society of Mechanical Engineers. known for his seminal work in the field of industrial management.
Henry John Lawson, also known as Harry Lawson, was a British bicycle designer, racing cyclist, motor industry pioneer, and fraudster. As part of his attempt to create and control a British motor industry Lawson formed and co floated The Daimler Motor Company Limited in London in 1896. It later began manufacture in Coventry. Lawson organised the 1896 Emancipation Day drive now commemorated annually by the London to Brighton Veteran Car Run on the same course.
Charles Eugène Bedaux was a French-American millionaire who made his fortune developing and implementing the work measurement aspect of scientific management, notably the Bedaux System. Bedaux was friends with British royalty and Nazis alike, and was a management consultant, big game hunter and explorer.
Edward Francis Leopold Brech was a British management consultant, and author of management theory and practice books, known for his work on the history of management.
Sir Charles Garonne Renold J.P., LL.D was a British engineer and pioneer of management science. Born in Altrincham, England, he was the son of Hans Renold, a Swiss-born engineer and businessman. He was Director from 1906 of Hans Renold Limited, the company his father started, later Managing Director of the Renold and Coventry Chain Company in Manchester 1930–67, which became Renold Chains Limited then Renold Plc. Renold was vice-president of Manchester College of Science and Technology, which was to become UMIST and was then part of the University of Manchester. During the Great War he offered his services to the government on the Manchester Armaments Committee. A public-spirited civil servant he remained concerned about industrial relations and the fear of sabotage. Like Mather and later Weizmann he was granted an interview by Lloyd George in which he promoted the activities of the Amalgamated Society of Engineers. Renold deliberately disassociated the workers from extremist peace campaigners in order to promote "the industrial issue".
George Saxon & Co was an English engineering company that manufactured stationary steam engines. It was based in the Openshaw district of Manchester. The company produced large steam-driven engines for power stations and later for textile mills in Lancashire and elsewhere.
Joseph Slater Lewis MICE FRSE was a British engineer, inventor, business manager, and early author on management and accounting, known for his pioneering work on cost accounting.
Francis George Burton was a British engineer, incorporated accountant and general manager of the Milford Haven Shipbuilding and Engineering Co. in Pembroke Dock, Wales, known for his early works in the management accounting.
Alfred John Liversedge was a British engineer, manager, and author, known from the 1889 publication "Engineering Estimates, Costs and Accounts," written under the pseudonym "A general manager." This work was one of the seminal works in the field of cost accounting.
Standard cost accounting is a traditional cost accounting method introduced in the 1920s, as an alternative for the traditional cost accounting method based on historical costs.
George Charter Harrison was an Anglo-American management consultant and cost account pioneer, known for designing one of the earliest known complete standard cost systems.
Fowler Calculators Ltd was a manufacturer of slide rules and other scientific and mathematical instruments, based in Manchester, England and founded by William Henry Fowler.
The Taylor Society was an American society for the discussion and promotion of scientific management, named after Frederick Winslow Taylor.
The Bedaux Unit emerged from the U.S. scientific management movement. It remains in daily use in measuring and comparing manual labor to this day.
Andrew Frederick Gault was an Ulster-born Canadian merchant, industrialist, and philanthropist known as the Cotton King of Canada.
