Ernest Goüin (; 22 July 1815 in

Tours Tours ( ; ) is the largest city in the region of Centre-Val de Loire, France. It is the Prefectures in France, prefecture of the Departments of France, department of Indre-et-Loire. The Communes of France, commune of Tours had 136,463 inhabita ...

– 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 i ...

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 ...

. 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

locomotive A locomotive is a rail transport, rail vehicle that provides the motive power for a train. Traditionally, locomotives pulled trains from the front. However, Push–pull train, push–pull operation has become common, and in the pursuit for ...

s, 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 Civil engineering is a regulation and licensure in engineering, professional engineering discipline that deals with the design, construction, and maintenance of the physical and naturally built environment, including public works such as roads ...

at the

École nationale des ponts et chaussées École nationale des ponts et chaussées (; ; abbr. ENPC), also nicknamed Ponts (), formerly known as École des Ponts ParisTech (), is a grande école in the field of science, engineering and technology, of the Polytechnic Institute of Paris, a ...

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 ...

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, 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 (, ; ; or ; ) is a city in the Loire-Atlantique department of France on the Loire, from the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic coast. The city is the List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, sixth largest in France, with a pop ...

. His company became public in 1871 as

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

Pyrenees The Pyrenees are a mountain range straddling the border of France and Spain. They extend nearly from their union with the Cantabrian Mountains to Cap de Creus on the Mediterranean coast, reaching a maximum elevation of at the peak of Aneto. ...

Apennines The Apennines or Apennine Mountains ( ; or Ἀπέννινον ὄρος; or – a singular with plural meaning; )Latin ''Apenninus'' (Greek or ) has the form of an adjective, which would be segmented ''Apenn-inus'', often used with nouns s ...

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

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 ( ) is the national central bank for France within the Eurosystem. It was the French central bank between 1800 and 1998, issuing the French franc. It does not translate its name to English, and thus calls itself ''Banque de ...

, and chairman of the ''

Conseil de prud'hommes In France, the Labour Courts or employment tribunals () resolve individual disputes arising out of an employment contract. The dispute is resolved by a judgment only if conciliation cannot be achieved by the court. Judges are not professionals; cur ...

de la Seine'', and of the

Paris Chamber of Commerce The Paris Chamber of Commerce ( 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. Since 2013 it has been a division of the Paris Île ...

. 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 Commanders of the Legion of Honour 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