Ernest Goüin (; 22 July 1815 in

Tours Tours ( , ) is one of the largest cities in the region of Centre-Val de Loire, France. It is the prefecture of the department of Indre-et-Loire. The commune of Tours had 136,463 inhabitants as of 2018 while the population of the whole metro ...

– 24 March 1885 in Paris) was a French

civil engineer A civil engineer is a person who practices civil engineering – the application of planning, designing, constructing, maintaining, and operating infrastructure while protecting the public and environmental health, as well as improving existing ...

and

industrialist A business magnate, also known as a tycoon, is a person who has achieved immense wealth through the ownership of multiple lines of enterprise. The term characteristically refers to a powerful entrepreneur or investor who controls, through per ...

. In 1846 he founded Ernest Goüin & Cie. (after 1871 ''

Société de Construction des Batignolles The Société de Construction des Batignolles was a civil engineering company of France created in 1871 as a public limited company from the 1846 limited partnership of ''Ernest Gouin et Cie.''. Initially founded to construct locomotives, the com ...

''); the company initially built locomotives, and diversified into bridge building and railway construction projects. His name is one of the 72 names inscribed on the Eiffel Tower.

Biography

Born on 20/22 July 1815, second son of Édouard Goüin, Ernest Goüin came from an established family of distinguished bankers and traders. He was educated at the Ecole Polytechnique, and had achieved the military rank of major, when in 1836 he resigned his commission and began to training in civil engineering at the

École nationale des ponts et chaussées École may refer to: * an elementary school in the French educational stages normally followed by secondary education establishments (collège and lycée) * École (river), a tributary of the Seine flowing in région Île-de-France * École, Savoi ...

He then studied engineering in England, learning at the railway workshops there, and subsequently was responsible for monitoring the construction of locomotives for the

Compagnie du chemin de fer de Paris à Orléans The ''Compagnie du chemin de fer de Paris à Orléans'' (PO) was an early French railway company. It merged with the '' Chemins de fer du Midi'' to form the ''Chemins de fer de Paris à Orléans et du Midi'' (PO-Midi) in 1934. In 1938 the PO-Mid ...

at the workshops of the Sharp Brothers in Manchester. Between 1839 and 1845 he was manager of a railway workshops in Paris on the Paris to St. Germain line; in 1846 he founded his own company ''Ernest Gouin et Cie.'' with backing from

James de Rothschild James de Rothschild may refer to: * James de Rothschild (politician) (1878–1957), French-born British politician and philanthropist * James Mayer de Rothschild James Mayer de Rothschild, Baron de Rothschild (born Jakob Mayer Rothschild; 15 ...

, and began locomotive construction. An economic depression in 1847 affected orders for locomotives and forced Goüin to diversify; as a result his company began manufacturing structural metal constructions, and in 1852 his company built became the first metal bridge builder in France, with a bridge in Asnières. Later he established a shipyard in

Nantes Nantes (, , ; Gallo: or ; ) is a city in Loire-Atlantique on the Loire, from the Atlantic coast. The city is the sixth largest in France, with a population of 314,138 in Nantes proper and a metropolitan area of nearly 1 million inhabita ...

. His company became public in 1871 as

, and through it he became involved in railway construction, including crossings of the

Pyrenees The Pyrenees (; es, Pirineos ; french: Pyrénées ; ca, Pirineu ; eu, Pirinioak ; oc, Pirenèus ; an, Pirineus) is a mountain range straddling the border of France and Spain. It extends nearly from its union with the Cantabrian Mountains to ...

Apennines The Apennines or Apennine Mountains (; grc-gre, links=no, Ἀπέννινα ὄρη or Ἀπέννινον ὄρος; la, Appenninus or – a singular with plural meaning;''Apenninus'' (Greek or ) has the form of an adjective, which wou ...

Carpathians The Carpathian Mountains or Carpathians () are a range of mountains forming an arc across Central Europe. Roughly long, it is the third-longest European mountain range after the Urals at and the Scandinavian Mountains at . The range stretche ...

and the Tyrolean Alps, lines in Algeria and Senegal, as well as railway lines in France and Belgium. He also attained the positions of director of the

Banque de France The Bank of France (French: ''Banque de France''), headquartered in Paris, is the central bank of France. Founded in 1800, it began as a private institution for managing state debts and issuing notes. It is responsible for the accounts of the ...

, and chairman of the '' Conseil de prud'hommes de la Seine'', and of the

Paris Chamber of Commerce The Paris Chamber of Commerce (french: Chambre de commerce et d'industrie de Paris or ''CCIP'') is a chamber of commerce of the Paris region. It defends the interests of companies of the city of Paris, and provides services to these companies. S ...

. He died in 1871; his descendants were involved in the running of the Société de Construction de Batignolles.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Gouin, Ernest French chief executives French civil engineers École Polytechnique alumni École des Ponts ParisTech alumni 1815 births 1885 deaths Engineers from Tours, France French industrialists Recipients of the Order of Franz Joseph Commandeurs of the Légion d'honneur Recipients of the Order of Saints Maurice and Lazarus Recipients of the Order of St. Anna French railway mechanical engineers Regents of the Banque de France 19th-century French businesspeople Businesspeople from Tours, France

Biography

See also

References

External links