Charles Dupin’s Study Visits to the British Isles, 1816–1824

Abstract

Charles Dupin’s Study Visits to the British Isles, 1816—1824 MARGARET BRADLEY AND FERNAND PERRIN When Napoleon met his final defeat in 1815, the cost to France of the long period of civil and foreign wars had been considerable. For more than twenty years, “the greater part of the country’s energy had gone into reform, revolution or conquest, rather than into industry.”1 Roads and bridges had been neglected or damaged, the merchant navy was in a shambles, the economy was stagnant. England, on the other hand, had been forging ahead and was now far stronger financially, commercially, and industrially than it had been in 1793. It had acquired new colonies and overseas markets, completed canals and continued with road improvements, developed the power of steam on a large scale, and was beginning to apply steam power to transport. To be sure, the war caused some disruption in trade, and there was a postwar depression that affected coal mining, ironmaking, and food prices. But in the main, England’s manufacturing industry had grown and its economy was resilient. France, on the other hand, was weary and humiliated. It was in this context that a young French naval engineer, Charles Dupin (1784—1873), prepared to visit the British Isles. He aimed not only to increase his knowledge but also to enhance his own career prospects. Dr. Bradley teaches in the Department of Languages, Politics, and History at Coventry Polytechnic, and Dr. Perrin, a former engineer in Paris, has retired to the province of Burgundy. In the preparation of this article, the authors are indebted to the Royal Society of London, the librarians and staff of the Archives de l’Académie des Sciences (Paris), the Archives du Service Historique de la Marine (Vincennes), the Archives Départementales de la Nièvre (Nevers), the École Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées, the École Polytechnique, the Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers (Paris), and the British Library. The late Professor Romain Baron contributed very kind advice and assistance, as did Professor René Taton of Paris, Dr. Ivor Grattan-Guinness, and M. Georges Marchand, mayor of Varzy, Dupin’s birthplace. ‘W. O. Henderson, Industrial Revolution on the Continent, 1800—1914 (London, 1961), p. 8; and E. Robinson, “International Exchange of Men and Machines,” Business History 1 (1958): 3-15.© 1991 by the Society for the History of Technology. All rights reserved. 0040-165X791/3201-0002$01.00 47 48 Margaret Bradley and Fernand Perrin While it had been a long time since a Frenchman had come to Britain on this type of mission, there was a long tradition behind Dupin’s visit. As early as 1764, the French government had sent a young man from Lyon, GabrielJars, to study English methods of iron production.2 A few years later, the Ministre de la Marine sent Babaud de la Chaussade, master of the Guérigny forges in the Nivernais, to study industrial processes in several foreign countries, including England.3 In 1775, Marchant de la Houlière visited England to investigate the superior quality of English coal and the nature of English iron ores. In 1779, less than five years after the completion ofJames Watt’s first successful steam engine in Britain, the Périer brothers had established a similar one in France.4 Construction of a blast furnace designed for coke, the first on the Continent, began at Le Creusot in 1782. By 1790, there were approximately 900 spinning jennies in France. Industrial espionage had a long history, of course, but the gathering of intelli­ gence about British technology was not always clandestine. It was a European tradition, asJohn Harris puts it, to receive “foreign scientists or savants, members of this academy, or corresponding fellows of that, and give them the opportunity to visit some celebrated mine or man­ ufacture. . . . Foreign army officers were expected to be honourable and gallant fellows of no particular technological skill . . . but the Baron, the Chevalier, the geologist, the naturalist, the chemist, the aeronaut, the Brigadier, the Captain, was very likely an iron master, an artillery technologist, a member of the bureau of commerce, an in­ spector of industry, an emissary of a foreign office, or...