William-Louis Ternaux

Portrait of William Ternaux

William-Louis Ternaux (1763-1833), the eldest son of Charles-Louis Ternaux (1738-1814), took over the direction of his family’s small woolen cloth business at Sedan (Department of Ardennes) in 1781 and rose to become the leading woolens manufacturer in France under Napoleon and during the Restoration. At the height of his success and fame in 1823, he challenged anyone to provide evidence to the contrary. If anyone, he wrote, could prove “. . . the existence of a manufacturer, not only in France, but in Europe, who has, at the same time, manufactured a greater amount and a greater value of woolen stuffs, created more new stuffs, experimented more with the use of raw materials and with the texture of fabrics, added more to the value of common woolen cloths, than I have done in the course of my life, I stand ready to pay this researcher the sum of 100,000 francs for his efforts.” ^[1]

Ternaux was indeed one of the great ‘lanceurs d’affaires’ of the early Industrial Revolution in France.^[2] By the time he composed his challenge for the jury president of the ‘Exposition of the Products of French Industry’ in Paris, 1823, he had created and was orchestrating a giant mechanized woolens industry employing overall some 20,000 people. Every requirement, from the raising of sheep to the marketing of finished products, was provided for and integrated. His main factories (usines de fabrication) were at Sedan, Reims, Louviers and Verviers (Belgium). He had experimental model factories for new fabrics (ateliers d’essais) at his estate at Saint-Ouen, near Paris. In Paris, there were workshops on the rue Mouffetard for constructing and testing new textiles machines, a chain of ten retail shops for displaying his wares, and a private bank (Place des Victoires). He built a dyeworks at Ternes and a wool-washing plant at Auteuil. He had commerce houses in cities throughout Europe as well as in New York, Mexico and Calcutta. His ship, named 'Ternaux’, carried his luxury goods to ports around the world. Ternaux contributed significantly to the introduction and perfection of merino sheep from Spain and, most famously, in 1818-19 he brought Tibetan cashmere goats to France and experimented with their fine down for his famous luxury shawls (cachemires, also named 'Ternauxs').

In private societies and the councils of Napoleon, as well as in the legislative assemblies of the Restoration, Ternaux was a key spokesman for economic and educational policies for the advancement of French industry. He was a principal founder of the Society for the Encouragement of National Industry (1801) and the first manufacturer appointed to the Ministry of Interior’s advisory Conseil Général des Fabriques et Manufactures (1810). He was a respected member of the important Chamber of Commerce of Paris. In the Chamber of Deputies of the Restoration (1818-1824, 1827-1831), Ternaux spoke out in favor of “liberal” measures for the freedom of commerce and industry. He advocated government support for expanding French overseas markets, especially in South America. He opposed strongly the policies of the Comte de Saint-Cricq (Director General of Customs) establishing high tariffs for the protection of French industry and agriculture. Ternaux's speech ("In the name of industry. . .") in the Chamber of Deputies at the time of the 1829 depression in France was a biting, summary attack on Restoration economic policies. ^[3] Ternaux was a close friend of Jean Baptiste Say, the French proponent of laissez faire economics, and he supported Henri Saint-Simon’s concept of an industrial-scientific society headed by the captains of industry.^[4]

Ternaux’s contributions over 50 years to the advancement of the woolens industry in France were truly remarkable. By the late 1820s, however, he was in trouble financially and forced to withdraw gradually from the field. He found it increasingly difficult to compete with less expensive English woolens, and there was growing consumer demand by then for cheaper machine-made cotton goods. In addition, he was having growing problems acquiring fine wools for the production of his luxury goods. ^[5] His efforts to increase and improve French sheep herds had only limited success, and agricultural interests in France had succeeded in having a high tariff placed on imports of foreign wools. Ternaux decided to shift his energies and limited investment capital to the manufacture of linens and canvas. He researched the cultivation of flax in France and experimented at Saint-Ouen with machines for the manufacture of linens. Finally, in 1829, he organized a joint stock company for the construction of a large, up-to-date linens and canvas factory at the small village of Boubers-sur-Canche, near Arras (Department of Pas-de-Calais). Unfortunately, just as the Boubers factory was about to begin production, the Revolution of July 1830 in France scared off his investors. The fate of the Boubers venture was still in question when Ternaux died accidentally (2 April 1833) at his home in Saint-Ouen.

William Ternaux’s impressive woolens empire did not endure after his sudden and tragic death. His only brother, Nicolas, who contributed importantly to the success of ‘Ternaux frères’ from 1795 to 1814, died in 1830. His two sons, Charles (1791-1835) and Louis (1792-1835), were unwilling to carry on the family enterprise.

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