Aimé Thomé de Gamond (November 1807 – 1876) was a French engineer and entrepreneur who believed in the feasibility of constructing a

Channel Tunnel The Channel Tunnel (), sometimes referred to by the Portmanteau, portmanteau Chunnel, is a undersea railway tunnel, opened in 1994, that connects Folkestone (Kent, England) with Coquelles (Pas-de-Calais, France) beneath the English Channel at ...

under the Straits of Dover. However, despite his enthusiasm for such a venture, he died ridiculed and penniless because the project was not in conjunction with the political atmosphere of the period. He is now called the "father of the tunnel between France and England".

Biography

De Gamond was born in

Poitiers Poitiers is a city on the river Clain in west-central France. It is a commune in France, commune, the capital of the Vienne (department), Vienne department and the historical center of Poitou, Poitou Province. In 2021, it had a population of 9 ...

in 1807. He studied to become a mining engineer in the Netherlands before returning to France. In 1834 he proposed his first projects for a tunnel beneath the English Channel. Gamond spent all his wealth and 30 years of his life promoting his vision. However, at the time both England and France thought that separation made better political and economical sense. In 1856, he presented a proposal to the emperor

Napoleon III Napoleon III (Charles-Louis Napoléon Bonaparte; 20 April 18089 January 1873) was President of France from 1848 to 1852 and then Emperor of the French from 1852 until his deposition in 1870. He was the first president, second emperor, and last ...

for a mined railway tunnel from Cap Gris-Nez to East Wear Point with a port/airshaft on the Varne sandbank, at a cost of 170 million

franc The franc is any of various units of currency. One franc is typically divided into 100 centimes. The name is said to derive from the Latin inscription ''francorum rex'' (King of the Franks) used on early French coins and until the 18th century ...

s, or less than £7 million. He would propose in total seven designs. His proposal was finally accepted in 1867 by Napoleon III and

Queen Victoria Victoria (Alexandrina Victoria; 24 May 1819 – 22 January 1901) was Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until Death and state funeral of Queen Victoria, her death in January 1901. Her reign of 63 year ...

but the

Franco-Prussian War The Franco-Prussian War or Franco-German War, often referred to in France as the War of 1870, was a conflict between the Second French Empire and the North German Confederation led by the Kingdom of Prussia. Lasting from 19 July 1870 to 28 Janua ...

of 1870 brought an end to the project. Channel Tunnel 1856 idea from Gamond 1a

Gamond's fiercest supporter was his daughter Elizabeth, who once rowed a boat into the English Channel so he could dive to the seabed to perform geological surveys on the

chalk Chalk is a soft, white, porous, sedimentary carbonate rock. It is a form of limestone composed of the mineral calcite and originally formed deep under the sea by the compression of microscopic plankton that had settled to the sea floor. Ch ...

because so little was known about the Weald–Artois Anticline. Even after his money dried up, she taught music to finance his dream. However, a tunnel was never built. Gamond died ruined and humiliated in 1876.

References

External links

Aimé Thomé de Gamond
(in French)
Jean-Pierre Renau, ''Louis Joseph Aimé Thomé de Gamond: 1807-1876 : pionnier du tunnel sous la Manche''; Editions L'Harmattan, 2001, 237 p.
(in French)

{{morecat, date=July 2023 Channel Tunnel 1807 births 1876 deaths 19th-century French engineers