Jean-François Cail (8 February 1804 – 22 May 1871) was a French

entrepreneur Entrepreneurship is the creation or extraction of economic value in ways that generally entail beyond the minimal amount of risk (assumed by a traditional business), and potentially involving values besides simply economic ones. An entreprene ...

and

industrialist A business magnate, also known as an industrialist or tycoon, is a person who is a powerful entrepreneur and investor who controls, through personal enterprise ownership or a dominant shareholding position, a firm or industry whose goods or ser ...

who was a key figure in French

industrialization Industrialisation (British English, UK) American and British English spelling differences, or industrialization (American English, US) is the period of social and economic change that transforms a human group from an agrarian society into an i ...

Life

Childhood

Jean-François Cail was born the third of eight children on 8 February 1804. He was the son of Charles Cail (1777–1854), a wheelwright, and his wife, Marie Pinpin (1777–1839). The family had a small cottage in Chef-Boutonne, in Deux-Sèvres (16).

Partnership with Charles Derosne

Jean-François Cail left home in 1816 to start an apprenticeship as a boilermaker. He ended up in the company of Charles Derosne, a manufacturing chemist involved in creating distillation equipment. Getting on well they founded the company Derosne & Cail in 1826. The company specialised in making alcohol and confectionery from sugar beet, and building machines to sell for others to follow the process. This included one of the world's first machines to make children's confectionery. In 1844 the company planned to expand into the manufacture of steam locomotives and in 1845 supplied seven or eight locomotives to Chemin de Fer de Nord, followed by two locomotives and wagons for Chemin de Fer de Sceaux in 1846. On 24 October 1846, Cail obtained a licence to copy the patents of

Thomas Russell Crampton Thomas Russell Crampton, MICE, MIMechE (6 August 1816 – 19 April 1888) was an English engineer born at Broadstairs, Kent, and trained on Brunel's Great Western Railway. He is best known for designing the Crampton locomotive but had many e ...

and began manufacturing

Crampton locomotive A Crampton locomotive is a type of steam locomotive designed by Thomas Russell Crampton and built by various firms from 1846 in rail transport, 1846. The main British builders were Tulk and Ley and Robert Stephenson and Company. Notable feature ...

s as well. He was one of the first railway constructors in France. Derosne died on 21 September 1846 and the company got into great trouble because of the 1848 revolution.

Société J. F. Cail & Cie

On 6 June 1850 Cail founded the new company Société J. F. Cail & Cie. It continued to be successful in locomotives and expanded to become an international company, branching especially into engineered structures.

Private life

Having become a wealthy man, Mr. Cail built a luxurious

townhouse A townhouse, townhome, town house, or town home, is a type of Terraced house, terraced housing. A modern townhouse is often one with a small footprint on multiple floors. In a different British usage, the term originally referred to any type o ...

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

that is used today by the city government as town hall of the 8th arrondissement. He is buried in an elaborate and huge tomb in

Pere Lachaise cemetery Pere may refer to: *Pere, Hungary, a village in Borsod-Abaúj-Zemplén county *Pärtel-Peeter Pere (born 1985), Estonian entrepreneur, urban strategist, and politician *Rose Pere, Rangimārie Te Turuki Arikirangi Rose Pere (1937–2020), Māori New ...

in Paris. The tomb lies towards the north-east at the junction of two paths.

Recognition

The main square of his home town Chef-Boutonne is named Place Cail. A street in Paris is also named after him: Rue Cail. Additionally, his name is among the 72 names engraved on the

Eiffel Tower The Eiffel Tower ( ; ) is a wrought-iron lattice tower on the Champ de Mars in Paris, France. It is named after the engineer Gustave Eiffel, whose company designed and built the tower from 1887 to 1889. Locally nicknamed "''La dame de fe ...

Gustave Eiffel Alexandre Gustave Eiffel ( , ; Bonickhausen dit Eiffel; 15 December 1832 – 27 December 1923) was a French civil engineer. A graduate of École Centrale des Arts et Manufactures, he made his name with various bridges for the French railway net ...

, in recognition of his contributions to the project.

References

1804 births 1871 deaths Burials at Père Lachaise Cemetery 19th-century French businesspeople {{France-business-bio-stub