Childe Wills

Childe Harold Wills (June 1, 1878 - December 30, 1940), also known as C. Harold Wills, was an early associate of Henry Ford, one of the first employees of the Ford Motor Company, and a contributor to the design of the Model T. After leaving Ford, he began his own ultimately unsuccessful automobile company.

Early career

Wills was born in Fort Wayne, Indiana, in 1878, the youngest child of John C. and Angelina S. Wills. By 1885, the family had moved to Detroit, Michigan, where Wills finished his schooling. Wills seemed to have an equal interest in commercial art and mechanical engineering; he learned a considerable amount about the latter from his father, a railroad mechanic.

When Wills was 17, he began a four-year apprenticeship as a toolmaker at the Detroit Lubricator Company, where his father worked. At the same time, he took night courses in metallurgy, chemistry and mechanical engineering. When his apprenticeship was served, he moved on to the Boyer Machine Co., later the Burroughs Adding Machine Co., becoming chief engineer in 1901, when he was only 23.