Robert August Bosch was a German inventor, engineer and industrialist who founded Robert Bosch GmbH, one of the world’s leading engineering firms, in 1886. Robert Bosch is also noted for inventing the spark plug and the electrical magneto for automobiles.
Born on September 23, 1861, near Ulm in Württemberg, south-western Germany, Robert Bosch attended the Technical University at Stuttgart. He also received training in mechanics in Ulm, Great Britain and the United States. Robert Bosch established the Robert Bosch GmbH Corporation, one of the leading producers of automotive technology, which also manufactured numerous other products. Bosch made important contributions to the expansion of the automobile industry and related sectors. Bosch started his own company, “Workshop for Precision Mechanics and Electrical Engineering”, when he was only 25. He invented a magneto for gas engines in 1887, which was used in an automobile engine almost ten years later. He also invented the first spark plug, an invention which revolutionized the operation of automobiles. His company largely benefited from the war, but Bosch open-heartedly donated more than ten million marks back to the German public. Bosch Industries faced severe crisis after the war due to the depressing economic downfall, but the company massively restructured in 1927, expanding into the manufacture of cameras, power tools, television sets, refrigerators and radios. Robert Bosch died on March 12, 1942 in Stuttgart, Germany, of complications resulting from an inflammation of the middle ear. He was 80 years old.
