Lars Magnus Ericsson (; 5 May 1846 – 17 December 1926) was a Swedish

inventor An invention is a unique or novel device, method, composition, idea, or process. An invention may be an improvement upon a machine, product, or process for increasing efficiency or lowering cost. It may also be an entirely new concept. If an ...

, entrepreneur and founder of

telephone A telephone, colloquially referred to as a phone, is a telecommunications device that enables two or more users to conduct a conversation when they are too far apart to be easily heard directly. A telephone converts sound, typically and most ...

equipment manufacturer

Ericsson (), commonly known as Ericsson (), is a Swedish multinational networking and telecommunications company headquartered in Stockholm, Sweden. Ericsson has been a major contributor to the development of the telecommunications industry and is one ...

( incorporated as ''Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson'').

Early life

Lars Magnus was born in Värmskog,

Värmland Värmland () is a ''Provinces of Sweden, landskap'' (historical province) in west-central Sweden. It borders Västergötland, Dalsland, Dalarna, Västmanland, and Närke, and is bounded by Norway in the west. Name Several Latinized version ...

, and grew up in the small village of Vegerbol located between Karlstad and Arvika. At the age of 12, Ericsson's father died forcing him to seek work as a

miner A miner is a person who extracts ore, coal, chalk, clay, or other minerals from the earth through mining. There are two senses in which the term is used. In its narrowest sense, a miner is someone who works at the rock face (mining), face; cutt ...

. He worked until he had enough money to leave the village and move to Stockholm in 1867. He then worked for six years for an instrument maker named ''Öllers & Co.'' who mainly created

telegraph Telegraphy is the long-distance transmission of messages where the sender uses symbolic codes, known to the recipient, rather than a physical exchange of an object bearing the message. Thus flag semaphore is a method of telegraphy, whereas ...

equipment. Because of his skills, he was given two state scholarships to study instrument making abroad between 1872 and 1875. One of the companies he worked at was Siemens & Halske.

Career

Upon his return to Sweden in 1876, he founded a small mechanical workshop together with his friend Carl Johan Andersson who had also worked at ''Öllers & Co.''. This workshop was actually a former kitchen of some 13 m² situated at Drottninggatan 15 in the most central part of Stockholm. Here, he started a

company by analyzing Bell company and Siemens telephones and creating his own copies in their image. It was not until they started cooperating with Henrik Tore Cedergren in 1883 that the company would start to grow into the

corporation. In the year 1900 Lars Magnus retired from Ericsson at the age of 54. He kept his shares in the company until 1905 and then sold them all. He is said to have been a demanding person, and disliked any direct publicity about his personality and did not wish to be idolized. He was, however, deeply respected by his employees. He was always a skeptic and cautious in business. He was also somewhat opposed to

patent A patent is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of time in exchange for publishing an sufficiency of disclosure, enabling discl ...

s, as many of the products he made would not have been possible to do if the patent legislation had been overly effective. When his phones were copied by Norwegian companies he did not care, as his phones had in turn been largely copied from Siemens. He initially did not believe in a

mass market The term "mass market" refers to a market for goods produced on a large scale for a significant number of end consumers. The mass market differs from the niche market in that the former focuses on consumers with a wide variety of backgrounds with ...

for telephones, and saw it as a toy for the leisure class.

Personal life

Ericsson married Hilda Simonsson in 1878. They had four children together: Johan (1879–1881), Gustaf (1880–1965), Anna (1881–1967) and Lars Magnus Jr. "Lalle" (1892–1921). When their daughter Anna was only six weeks old, their eldest son Johan died from pulmonary oedema. The couple also lost their son Lalle at a young age to tuberculosis.

Death

After his death in 1926, he was buried at Hågelby gård in Botkyrka. At his explicit request, there is no

headstone A gravestone or tombstone is a marker, usually stone, that is placed over a grave. A marker set at the head of the grave may be called a headstone. An especially old or elaborate stone slab may be called a funeral stele, stela, or slab. The u ...

marking his grave.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ericsson, Lars Magnus 1846 births 1926 deaths People from Grums Municipality 19th-century Swedish inventors Swedish miners Ericsson people 19th-century Swedish businesspeople

Early life

Career

Personal life

Death

See also

References