Fernand d'Huart
Baron Fernand d'Huart ( -1911)
1911 Obituary [1]
Baron FERNAND D'HUART died on September 13, 1911, in his seventieth year. He was born in 1841, and after being privately educated he entered the Ecole Centrale in Paris, where he acquired a thorough scientific education. In 1864, after having taken several honours during the course of his academic career, he left the school and assumed control of the ironworks at Longwy which he had inherited from his father, and to the development of which he directed all his energies, bringing to the task the scientific training he had acquired. The works were extended and several fresh departments added.
This period coincided with the great development in the metallurgical industries which took place in France from 1865 to 1880, although it suffered a temporary interruption on the outbreak of the Franco-German War. Baron d'Huart served with credit in the army, and during the siege of Longwy he contributed, in his capacity as a captain in the artillery, to the defence of that city. On the conclusion of the war in 1871 he was awarded a Grand Cross of the Legion of Honour for bravery during the campaign. Thereafter he resumed the business he had temporarily laid aside and was active in forming the Comptoir Metallurgique de Longwy, an institution which played a considerable part in the successful progress of the iron and steel industries of that region. He was associated with the late Mr.
Gustave Raty in founding the steelworks at Longwy, and he was also a director of numerous other ironworks, including those of the Societe Metallurgique de Senelle-Maubeuge, which was founded in 1883, and the Societe d'Athus-Grivegnee, better known as the Societe Anonyme des Hauts-Fourneaux d'Athus. It was in one of the blast-furnaces of this company that the minette ores were first employed in the smelting of iron in France. He was also one of the principal proprietors of the Longwy Potteries. He was on the Board of the Societe Lorraine Industrielle d'Hussigny, and of the Tramways Company of Longwy. He devoted much of his time to the improvement of the conditions of his workmen, and took a minute interest in their welfare. He became a member of the Iron and Steel Institute in 1880, and was made an honorary vice-president in 1909.