Edward J. Kingsbury (1893-1973)

After getting a degree in mechanical engineering from MIT and joining his father’s business, the WilkinsToy Co., he saw a need for an automatic drilling machine to drill through the hard spots in the cast iron machine, and in 1920 he became head of the Company, now Kingsbury Machine Tool. In 1923 he developed the concept of placing the drilling machine units around a rotary table to obtain high production by simultaneous multiple-station drilling–the beginning of the rotary transfer machine.

Elected 1992