French civil engineers in the Spanish mining industry

Abstract

This work aims to offer an overview of the presence of French mining engineers in Spain in the period 1881-1936. We will divide the paper into two sections. The first will be a study on the whole group of professionals in this field in Spain, with the idea of ascertaining the real weight of the French engineers compared to those from other countries, and will include a detailed analysis of their origins and the profile of their professional careers. In the second part of the paper we take a case study of the engineers who worked for the Société Minière et Metallurgique Peñarroya, which, along with Rio Tinto, was the most important company ever to operate in Spain. We will use the historical archives of the company. This company, which received funding from the Rothschild, Mirabaud, Paccard, Puerari et Cie banks and from the financier Louis Cahend’Anvers, was characterised from the outset by the huge presence of engineers on its board of directors, who enjoyed wide support from the shareholder banks in developing one of the most important programmes of technological innovation in the industrial history of Spain. Elsewhere, these top management engineers (particularly Charles and Frederick Ledoux, Jean André Chastel, Paul Gal, Gromier, Paguezy and Malye, to name just a few) played a key role in the company's expansion through continuous acquisitions and takeovers of numerous mining companies in Spain and other Mediterranean countries. Finally, we should point out the long lasting nature of the relation these technical workers had with the company, which was at times their whole professional life. Unlike today's modern conglomerates, in Peñarroya there was hardly any mobility between firms. Indeed, promotion was fostered and engineers who began low down in the company could rise to the highest levels in the chain of command on the basis of their own merits.