Bosch was born in Albeck, a village to the northeast of Ulm in southern Germany as the eleventh of twelve children. His parents came from a class of well-situated farmers from the region. His father, a freemason, was unusually highly educated for someone of his class, and placed special importance on a good education for his children.

From 1869 to 1876, Bosch attended the Realschule (secondary-technical school) in Ulm, and then took an apprenticeship as a precision mechanic. After his school and practical education, Bosch spent a further seven years working at diverse companies in Germany, the United States (for Thomas Edison in New York), and the UK (for the German firm Siemens).

On 15 November 1886, he opened his own "Workshop for Precision Mechanics and Electrical Engineering" in Stuttgart. A year later, he made a decisive improvement to an unpatented magneto ignition device made by the engine manufacturer Deutz, providing his first business success. The purpose of the device was to generate an electric spark to ignite the air–fuel mixture in a stationary engine. In 1897, Bosch was the first to adapt a magneto to a vehicle engine.

Before the 19th century ended, Bosch expanded his operations beyond Germany. The company established a sales office in the UK in 1898, and other European countries soon after. The first sales office and the first factory in the U.S. were opened in 1906 and 1910 respectively. By 1913, the company had branch operations in America, Asia, Africa, and Australia, and was generating 88% of its sales outside Germany. In rapid succession in the years following the First World War, Bosch launched innovations for the motor vehicle, including diesel fuel injection in 1927.

In the 1920s the global economic crisis caused Bosch to begin a rigorous program of modernization and diversification in his company. In only a few years' time, he succeeded in turning his company from a small automotive supplier into a multinational electronics group.

Bosch was keenly interested in agricultural issues and owned a farm south of Munich. He was also a passionate hunter. In 1937, Bosch had restructured his company as a private limited company (close corporation). He had established his last will and testament, in which he stipulated that the earnings of the company should be allocated to charitable causes. At the same time, his will sketched the outlines of the corporate constitution, which was formulated by his successors in 1964 and is still valid today. He was inducted into the Automotive Hall of Fame in 1984.

According to en.wikipedia