Gottlieb Wilhelm Daimler was the son of a baker named Johannes Däumler (Daimler) and his wife Frederika, from the town of Schorndorf near Stuttgart, Württemberg. By the age of 13 (1847), he had completed six years of primary studies in Lateinschule and became interested in engineering. The next year, he began an apprenticeship with a carbine maker, Raithel.[2] He graduated in 1852, passing the craft test with a pair of engraved double-barreled pistols.[3] The same year, at eighteen, Daimler decided to take up mechanical engineering, abandoning gun smithing,[4] and left his hometown.