Alexander Hartdegen (1869 to 1903) was a scientist and inventor, who created The Time Machine in the late nineteenth century. Motivated by the accidental death of his fiancee, he was determined to travel back through time and rescue her. His plan failed when he discovered he couldn't undo the Time Machine's reason for existing in the first place, and he instead traveled 800,000 years into the far future to encounter the Eloi and the Morlocks. ("The Time Machine")