Charles Billings was born on December 5, 1835, in Wethersfield, Vermont, United States, the son of Ethan Ferdinand and Clarissa (Marsh) Billings. His great-grandfather, Joseph Billings, had settled in Windsor, Vermont, in 1793. Shortly after the birth of Charles Billings, the family moved to Windsor.
Charles received a brief education in the public schools in Windsor. At the age of seventeen he was engaged as an apprentice in the gun department of the old Robbins & Lawrence shop in Windsor.
After gaining a fundamental knowledge of machine-shop practise at the old Robbins & Lawrence shop, Billings went to Springfield, Massachussets. A few months later he moved to Hartford, Connecticut, where for six years he was employed at the pistol factory of Samuel Colt, serving as toolmaker and die sinker and for three years as foreman of the die-sinking department. While at Colt's he became an expert in drop-forging - a process for forging between dies by a drop-hammer. This process, which was coming into popularity as a means of manufacturing tools and machine parts, was a step in the replacing of hand work by standardized quantity production.
In 1862 Billings was engaged by E. Remington & Sons of Ilion, New York, and, despite the criticism of conservative associates, he developed a process of treating drop-forgings that caused extraordinary saving of labor in manufacturing pistols. A single adaptation of drop-forging to the shaping of pistol frames by machinery saved this company many thousands of dollars in labor. As these improvements in firearms came at the time of the Civil War, they were particularly important.
In 1865, at the close of the war, Billings returned to Hartford, and for three years was superintendent of manufacturing for the Weed Sewing Machine Company, which had taken over the old Sharps rifle works built by Robbins & Lawrence.
In 1868 he became president and superintendent of the Roper Sporting Arms Company at Amherst, Massachussets, in association with C. M. Spencer. During the next year the business was moved to Hartford and reorganized as the Billings & Spencer Company. The sale of Roper sporting arms suffered a severe setback and in 1870 the firm took up the manufacture of drop-forgings in general, including machinists' small tools. The business prospered and grew, largely because of the inventive ability of Billings, the president.
Billings served alderman and city councilman at Hartford, as president for twelve years of the board of fire commissioners, as high dignitary in the Masons, as a bank trustee.
Charles Billings was a well-know inventor and tool-maker of his time. Among the outstanding inventions was the Billings commutator-bar for electric dynamos, made from drop-forged copper. Other inventions included drills, chucks, pocketknives, wrenches and others, all made by machinery instead of by the old slow hand methods. He also devised a method for making sewing-machine shuttles by drop-forging - a decided improvement over the old method of brazing the parts together. This one was patented in 1867.
Billings served as president of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers in 1895.
Billings was twice married; first to Frances M. Heywood on January 5, 1857; second to Evalina Case Holt on September 9, 1874.
