Jules Gravereaux (1 May 1844 in Vitry-sur-Seine - 23 March 1916 in Paris) was a French rosarian. He was a top executive at the department store Le Bon Marché and in 1892 purchased land at the village of L'Haÿ about 8 km south of Paris. There, he built the first ever complete garden devoted exclusively to roses. It became so popular that a few years later the village changed its name to L'Haÿ-les-Roses.
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His parents were Jean Narcisse Gravereaux, carpenter, and Marie Henriette Gervais. In March 1856, at age 12, he was apprenticed to a hatter of rue du Bac. He was hired two years later by the haberdashery of Aristide Boucicault and wife. In 1852, Mr. and Mrs. Boucicault bought the land in front of their shop to build Le Bon Marché. Jules Gravereaux began at Le Bon Marché in 1864 as a private seller and moved up the ranks. He joined the board in 1871.
In August 1873, he married Laure Thuillier.
Mrs. Boucicault had no children and at her death, she bequeathed all her shares of Le Bon Marché to its employees based on their seniority. Present since the beginning, Jules Gravereaux inherits enough to retire in 1892 at age 48.[1]
While working for Le Bon Marché he became interested in roses while on textile buying trips to Lille.[1] In 1892, he bought a large property in L'Haÿ and hired the famous landscape architect Édouard André to lay out a garden of 1600 roses. Here he hybridized his own roses and made his own rose oil for perfume.
In 1900, Jules Gravereaux was hired by Jean-Claude Nicolas Forestier, the Commissioner of Gardens for the city of Paris, to help create the public rose gardens at Château de Bagatelle. He donated 1200 roses for the garden, which is the site of the International New Rose Trial (Concours International des Roses Nouvelles). In 1901, the Ministry of Agriculture asked him to collect wild plants of the genus Rosa and those used in the horticultural and industrial production of rose perfume. He started this mission in the Balkans. Back at L'Hay, he decided to create new rose varieties for the production of perfume, which would facilitate the process of distillation. He worked on hybrids of Rosa rugosa and developed the cultivar 'Rose à parfum de L'Haÿ', among others. In all he created 27 new cultivars, primarily for rose oil production.[1]
Roseraie de l’Haÿ reached peak capacity at 8000 roses in 1910, every type known at the time.[1]
In 1911, Gravereaux helped recreate the rose collection of Joséphine de Beauharnais at her Château de Malmaison by researching all species and cultivars available in Europe in her lifetime, and donating the 197 roses his research turned up.[1] This list included 107 gallicas, 27 centifolias, 3 mosses, 9 damasks, 22 bengals, 4 spinosissimas, 8 albas, 3 luteas, 1 musk, and the species alpina, arvensis, banksia, carolina, cinnamomea, clinophylla, laevigata (the cherokee rose), rubrifolia (aka glauca), rugosa, white and red, sempervirens, and setigera.[2] He was awarded the Legion of Honor and proclaimed Commander of Agricultural Merit for having developed interest in rose gardens and rose commerce. In 1914, the town of L'Haÿ changed its name to L'Haÿ-les-Roses.[1]
Jules Gravereaux died in Paris March 23, 1916. The very fragrant, purple rugosa hybrid, 'Roseraie de L'Haÿ' was named for his garden.