Biography
Polhem was born on the island of Gotland in the small village of Tingstäde, situated northeast of Visby.
Originally the Polheim family came from Austria to Pomerania, Germany, from where his father, Wolf Christoph Polhammer traded with Visby, where he would eventually settle down to become a skipper. When Polhem was 8, his father died and his mother, Christina Eriksdotter Schening from Vadstena, Östergötland remarried. As a result of conflicts with his stepfather, his private tuition was no longer paid for and Polhem was sent to live with his uncle in Stockholm. In Stockholm he attended a German school until the age of 12 when his uncle died; once again Polhem was left without the possibility of education.
He took a job as a farmhand on Vansta, a property in Södertörn, Stockholm. He quickly rose to the position of supervisor, being responsible for supervision and accounting, for which he was well suited by his affinity for mathematics. He worked at Vansta for ten years, during which period he constructed a workshop where he made tools, repaired and constructed simple machinery to earn money.
Hungering for knowledge within his fields of interest, mathematics and mechanics, he soon realized that he would get no further without learning Latin. Self-studies were attempted, but given up; Polhem realized he needed a tutor. In exchange for constructing a complex clock, he was given Latin lessons by a local vicar.
Word of Polhem's mechanical skill spread quickly and a member of the clergy wrote the professor of mathematics at Uppsala University, Anders Spole to recommend Polhem. Spole, grandfather of Anders Celsius, presented two broken clocks to Polhem and offered to let him study under him if he could repair them, Polhem repaired the clocks with no difficulty and began recovering years of lost education in 1687, at the age of 26.
He married Maria Hoffman in 1691, together they had two children, Gabriel and Emerentia.
In 1716 he was ennobled in gratitude of his services to the nation by the king and changed his name from Polhammar to Polheim, which he later changed to Polhem.
He and his son Gabriel Polhem were both elected members of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in 1739, the year the Academy was founded.
Polhem died of natural causes in 1751 in Stockholm.
Read more about this topic: Christopher Polhem
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