Editing Hiram Maxim (section)

===Maxim gun===
{{main|Maxim gun}}
[[File:Maxim, Cassier and Smith with Machine Gun for Germany - Cassier's 1895-04 (cropped).png|thumb|upright|Image from the April 1895 edition [[Cassier's Magazine]], showing Hiram Maxim and the [[Maxim gun]], along with Louis Cassier and J. Bucknall Smith]]
Maxim was reported to have said: "In 1882 I was in Vienna, where I met an American whom I had known in the States. He said: 'Hang your chemistry and electricity! If you want to make a pile of money, invent something that will enable these Europeans to cut each others' throats with greater facility.'"<ref name=nyt>Malcolm Brown [https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B0CEFDE1E38F935A15752C1A963948260&sec=health&spon=&pagewanted=all 100 years of 'Maxim's Killing Machine'] ''New York Times'', 26 November 1985.</ref>

As a child, Maxim had been knocked over by a rifle's recoil, and this inspired him to use that recoil force to automatically operate a gun. Between 1883 and 1885 Maxim patented gas, recoil and blowback methods of operation. After moving to England, he settled in a large house formerly owned by [[Lord Thurlow]] in [[West Norwood]] where he developed his design for an automatic weapon, using an action that would close the breech and compress a spring, by storing the recoil energy released by a shot to prepare the gun for its next shot. He thoughtfully ran announcements in the local press warning that he would be experimenting with the gun in his garden and that neighbours should keep their windows open to avoid the danger of broken glass.<ref>Ben Weinreb & Christopher Hibbert, ''The London Encyclopedia'', {{ISBN|0-333-57688-8}} ''Serbia House''</ref>

Maxim founded an arms company with financial backing from [[Edward Vickers]] to produce his machine gun in [[Crayford]], Kent, which later merged with [[Maxim Nordenfelt Guns and Ammunition Company|Nordenfelt]]. Subsequently, part of the [[Vickers Shipbuilding and Engineering#History|Barrow Shipbuilding Company]] purchase by [[Vickers]] Corporation in 1897, formed 'Vickers, Son & Maxim'. Their improved development of the Maxim gun design, the [[Vickers machine gun]], after Maxim's resignation from the board in 1911 on his 71st birthday, was the standard British machine gun for many years. With arms sales led by [[Basil Zaharoff]], variants of the Maxim gun were bought and used extensively by both sides during [[World War I]].

In his later years Maxim became profoundly deaf, as his hearing had been damaged by years of exposure to the noise of his guns.<ref>Action By Sir Hiram Maxim, ''The Times'', 16 January 1915.</ref>