#3 Henry Ford

Age: 83yrs (Died April 7th 1947)

Birth Place: Greenfield Township, Dearborn, Michighan, USA

Industry: Auto-motive manufacturer

Influence: Pioneer of Transport

Net Worth: $1.1 billion

Why they made the list…

Henry Ford,  One of the few men that made mainstream automobiles become a reality. He was born into a family of farmers who originated from England and Ireland. Not the wealthiest of families but certainly not poverty stricken. In his teenage years, his father had given him a timepiece, which he later took to pieces just to see if he could piece it together again successfully, which he did. He then started to do the same with other peoples timepieces and eventually he started to repair them too. Henry was also a sufferer of Dyslexia, and although this was a hurdle it was by no means a reason to give up.

He went on to complete an apprenticeship with James F. Flower & Bros, and also with the Detroit Dry Dock Company. In 1891 he met with Thomas Edison who liked his concept of an auto-mobile, so he allowed him to use his warehouses to manufacturer two vehicles. Ford was grateful but later went on to build his own company so he could build the cars on his own terms backed by William H. Murphy he founded the Detroit Automobile Company (1899). This was short lived however, as the vehicles produced lacked the quality and precision Ford wanted as well as being horribly expensive. The business went under but it didn’t stop him. Ford went on to build the Cadillac Automobile company. After almost failing a second time due to lack of sales and high debts more partners came into the business and the name was changed to the Ford Motor Company. Current sales for the Ford group are now a massive $190 billion.