Lievin Bauwens

Liévin Bauwens (born 14 June 1769, in Ghent, died 17 March 1822, in Paris) was a Belgian entrepreneur and industrial spy.

At the age of 17, he went to England for three years to learn the latest techniques of tanning.

After taking over his father's tanning business, and having been, in the 1790s, a supplier to the French army of occupation, he undertook several trips to Great Britain as an industrial spy,and managed to smuggle, in parts, a spinning machine, the mule-jenny, as well as personnel qualified to operate it, to the continent.

Using tricks and bribery, and having a safe conduct obtained thanks to his connections with the French Directoire, he bought a mule jenny in pieces, which he concealed in crates of sugar or bales of coffee and then shipped them, by a detour via Hamburg (where his brother Jean had a house of commerce), to the continent. He supposedly obtained the machinery from Adam Parkinson in Manchester (Salford), but there are doubts about this. Bauwens' action was classifed as espionage, and the death penalty applied (Britain and France were at war).
Having failed to find qualified personnel able to assemble and operate the machines, he also endeavoured, not without difficulty, through his representatives in London, to recruit English workers, using persuasion or by promising high salaries, and attracting them to Hamburg or Scotland. Many were thus led to abandon their families in England without clearly realising that they were guilty of industrial espionage and that there was therefore no longer any way for them to return home. Added to this, Bauwens quickly got rid of them, as soon as he had finished training cheaper local labour. On November 12, 1798, when he had just taken on board the last pieces of the mule-jenny and had recruited, with a view to setting up with their help a new spinning mill in Ghent, around forty English spinners, foremen and mechanics, the wife of one of the foremen spilled the beans to the police. The ship bound for Hamburg, in which Bauwens had to hastily embark, was pursued by several British ships as far as the coast of Germany; In Hamburg, the British demanded that Bauwens be delivered to them, and only renounced this in exchange for many gold coins. His English home was searched, a price placed on his head and his property seized. His accomplices were sentenced to prison terms and heavy fines.
Nevertheless, he managed to piece together missing parts and make the mule-jenny operational. His brother François then began producing more than 2,000 mule jennys in Paris. A copy of this mechanical spinner is on display at the Museum of Industrial Archaeology and Textiles , established in a former cotton mill in the north of Kuip, Ghent.

Several of Bauwens' sisters married other major industrialists: the Heyndrickx, Guinard, Heyman, and cotton printer De Vos. To these industrialists, but also to other textile barons, such as the Lousbergs and the Rosseels, Lieven Bauwens, sold his machines. At the same time, at the beginning of 1800, he opened a mechanical spinning mill in Ghent (Fratersplein). With 25 spinning mills and 15 weaving factories, a vertically integrated cotton industry was established in Ghent, before 1812. Liévin Bauwens was therefore at the origin of a spectacular industrial and demographic boom in his hometown, soon nicknamed the Belgian Manchester.
In 1802, 700 - 800 inmates of the provincial prison in Ghent, worked on his behalf. A similar system was also put in place in Vilvoorde and Hemiksem. In 1805, he set up a third cotton spinning mill in Tronchiennes, this time using steam engines. He also owned a factory in the abbey of Géronsart, near Namur.

He was awarded the Légion d'honneur by Napoleon in 1810.

From 1811, as the continental blockade took effect, the Ghent cotton industry began to decline. Bauwens suffered considerable losses and was forced to lay off half of his staff. But even worse than the blockade was its lifting, which exposed the continent to British competition; the Napoleonic Empire was coming to an end and Bauwens could not avoid bankruptcy and had to abandon his factories to his creditors and retire to Paris, where in 1819 he developed of a new method for processing floss silk. He transferred his patent to Baron d'Idelot, in return for an annual annuity, and founded a silk spinning mill in Paris in 1819.

Bauwens died unexpectedly on 17 March 1822, at the age of 53. His widow, Maria Kenyon, had him buried in the Père-Lachaise cemetery.

The above information is condensed from the Wikipedia entry, accessed 26 April 2024.

However, it is clear that Bauwens had inside help to acquire the machinery, from a Manchester mechanic, James Kenyon, whose daughter eventually married Bauwens and accompanied him back to Ghent (with five additional skilled English artisans) and helped him run his business.

1865

CORRESPONDENCE. COTTON SPINNING IN FRANCE.
SIR,—As I am one of the sons of the Lieven Bauwens alluded to in a letter published on the inauguration of a statue to the memory of Richard Lenoir, and in which occurs a quotation from the Memorial d' Amiens that, Richard Lenoire did not introduce the cotton spinning machinery, and that his very existence is a myth; and then goes on to say that a Belgian named Bauwens, established the first spinning mill at Chaillot, &c., will you allow me to add some corrections to the corrective statement already made. My father in 1797-98 introduced, at a great expense, the cotton-spinning from England to France, and as the two countries were at war at that time, he had great difficulty in accomplishing his task. He was nearly siezed himself in this country when sending his models in sugar-casks and coffee-bags to evade the severity of the law against exporters of machinery. His agent had five years' imprisonment for helping him, and his foreman, Harding, two years, for having engaged himself to go with him. All my father's goods and chattels in London and in Manchester were seized; the sacrifice was a heavy one, and I have often heard him say that it cost him more than a million of francs. Still, not daunted, and minus of his best foreman and of his models, he started the year after two establishments—one at the Convent des Bons Hommes, near Chaillot or Passy, in Paris, and the other at Ghent, in Flanders, at the Convent des Chartreaux, thus changing those quiet places into beehives. The great wars at that time having swallowed most of the able-bodied men, he found employment for the 1,500 convicts of the Maison de Force at Ghent, and constructed there the first spinning machinery, sold to and used by Richard, who was then only a merchant of English bombazin (a light cotton silky stuff), but afterwards made it himself with the cotton spun with that machinery. My father obtained the prize of 100,000 francs at the exhibition of 1801 for the best machinery in cotton-spinning, and was also decorated, on May 9, 1810, with the Cross of the Legion d'Honneur, by Napoleon I. He also received, on the 22nd May, 1805, from the township of Ghent, a commemorative medal in gold, to acknowledge his unremitting exertions for the good of his country, and for Ghent particularly, which owes to him her prosperity, and her claim to be called the Manchester of the Empire. My father employed at that time more than 3,000 workmen and women in his establishment at Ghent. All those facts are well known at Ghent and in Belgium, and the archives of the French Goverment are full of them. My father was also personally known and much encouraged in his efforts by Barras, in 1797-98; then by Chaptal in 1801; and also by the great Napoleon.—l am, sir, your obedient servant, Walworth House, Sept. 1865. F. L. Bawens.'

1901 'James Kenyon (2) and the Spinning Jenny. Writing in the Manchester City News, Mr. Oscar S. Hall, of Bury, says:—' Interested" will find an account of James Kenyon and his family in the Transactions of Lancashire and Cheshire Antiquarian Society for 1890. It was given by Mr. W. E. Axon in his opening address on October 10 of that year under the title of "The Introduction of Cotton Spinning into France and Belgium." Full details are given of how the spinning jenny was first taken in 1798 from Manchester to Belgium by Lievin Bauwens, and of this latter's marriage to May [Mary?] Kenyon. Lievin Bauwens died in 1822 and his wife in 1834. One son died at Paris in 1869, another in London, whilst a daughter was married to M. Louis Rysheuvels, of Antwerp. One of the open squares in Ghent is named in honour of Lievin Bauwens, and there his statue stands. It may be interesting in connection with the same subject to note facts which are not so well known, namely, the introduction of machine spinning into Germany. In 1799 J. P. C. Wohler received the sole privilege of founding a spinning mill in Saxony, with the use of throstles, for a period of ten years, and a similar privilege was obtained in 1798 by C. F. Bernhard, a merchant who had already been established in the spinning trade in Manchester, for the use of the mule. Wohler was aided by an English mechanic named William Whitefield, from Halifax, and Bernhard by Watson, Moult, and Evan Evans. This Evan Evans was a Welshman who, in 1802, left Manchester to take a position as a spinning overlooker. Ultimately he made and supplied spinning machinery, having in 1812 already made and delivered 42,768 spindles. There now exists an Evans Scholarship in Chemistry, and a memorial stone in remembrance of his high services in the founding and development of cotton spinning in Saxony, provided by funds from the State. His son became a member of the North German Imperial Diet.'

Note: Bauwens married Mary Kenyon, born in 1785 at Ashton-under-Lyne, deceased June 30, 1834. (Parents : M James KENYON & F Mary HARTLEY).

More information :-

'Lievin Jean Bauwens was born at Ghent on the 14th of June, 1769, and was the son of Georges Bauwens and his second wife, Therese van Peteghem. His father had a tannery in the Waaistraat, and his numerous children were taught to take a part in the family industry, so at an early age Lievin was made the overseer of a branch establishment at Huydersvetters-Hoeck. He can only have been a boy when he had this responsible position, for at the age of sixteen he came to London, and in the great tannery of Undershell and Fox learned what there was to be known of the English methods of that industry. Three years later he returned to Ghent, and took charge of a large establishment which his father had started shortly before his death. The Nieuwland Tannery in the old Dominican convent employed 200 men, and kept 550 vats going. Bauwens made leather for the London market, and is said to have paid 500,000 francs of customs duty yearly. He had frequent occasion to visit England, and the expansion of the cotton industry naturally attracted his attention —all the more so that he had always had a strong taste for mechanics, and only adopted the family trade in compliance with the wishes of his father. A clock which he had made at the age of twelve was one of the favourite exhibits of his parents, who, whilst proud of the ingenuity of their son, did not wish him to abandon the vocation which had ensured competence to the family. As tanners, they naturally felt that there was "nothing like leather."

'At this time Belgium was annexed to France, and Bauwens proposed to the Directoire that he should endeavour to obtain the secret of the machines by which the British manufacturer bade defiance to his continental rivals. The French Government promised him their support, and he came to Manchester for the purpose of getting the necessary information. This was in 1798, and he was aided by Francois de Pauw, one of his relations. At Manchester he made the acquaintance of an overseer, Mr. James Kenyon, and his daughter Mary. Whilst talking business with the father he appears to have talked of other matters to the girl, who eventually became his wife. The various parts of the machine, which in Belgium came to be called the " mull jenny," were secreted in casks of sugar and in bags of coffee, and shipped to Hamburg. The statement that he intended to add dealings in colonial produce to his tanning operations was a sufficient explanation of this novel step on his part. Some of the packages were to be sent from Gravesend, and from this port Bauwens intended himself to depart, along with a number of workmen whom he had engaged. An overseer named Harding had a wife who strongly objected to the departure of her husband, and she made a scene, in which the destination and intentions of the party were made known. The police thus came to a knowledge of the conspiracy, and the men were arrested. Bauwens managed to escape in the crowd, and hastening quickly to London, he took passage to Hamburg, where part of the precious packages and the workmen who had been sent on before awaited him. Here he had a narrow escape, for Sir James Crawford, the British Envoy, endeavoured to have him imprisoned. The export of machinery and workmen was then a criminal offence, and the conspirators who had fallen into the hands of the authorities were brought before the Court of King's Bench and convicted. The contemporary accounts of the affair in the English periodicals are very meagre, and the French accounts have an air of exaggeration. Thus we are told that Bauwens was, in his absence, condemned to death, and faute de mieux hung in effigy. Whatever his sentence may have been, it was powerless to hinder his success. He established spinning factories at Ghent, and still larger establishments at Paris, where he converted a convent of Bonshommes, at Passy, into a cotton spinning mill. He had a tannery at St. Cloud ; he bought from the French Government the ingots made from the silver taken in the dissolved monasteries, and sold them at

'Napoleon, when he came to power, had a good opinion of Bauwens ; he visited the great works both at Paris and at Ghent, and after his inspection of the last-named place, he sent 4,000 francs to be distributed in presents to the workpeople. Bauwens started a new spinning mill at Tronchiennes, and was the first in Belgium to employ steam power. The flying shuttle was also used by him, and he made essays in cotton printing', in carding, and, indeed, appears to have been always on the alert for every possible improvement of the industrial processes in which he was engaged. He took an active part in local affairs, and was Maire of Ghent and member of the Council of the Department. In 1805, the town of Ghent presented him with a gold medal at a banquet, where the services of Bauwens in the creation of fresh industries was gratefully acknowledged. The French Institute, in a report on the progress of industry, gave to Bauwens the credit of having naturalised the English machines in France. Napoleon, who was in Ghent in 1810, offered him the title of Comte. This he declined, but accepted the Cross of the Legion of Honour. His great works, and that at Ghent, are said to have given employment to 3,000 people, were open to visitors, and he freely gave advice to those who were engaging in the cotton trade. His own profits were very large, and he showed great liberality in the treatment of his workpeople, and in the uses he made of his riches. But this princely opulence was not without check. Thecoalition of the great powers against Napoleon, in 1814, resulted in disaster to French industry, and Bauwens was one of the victims, A forced sale of the factories turned out very unfavourably, and Bauwens was ruined.

'When the kingdom of the Netherlands was formed, Bauwens sought the patronage of William I., but in vain. A proposal to establish cotton spinning on the banks of the Guadalquivir, which he made to the Infanta of Spain, was equally unsuccessful. In these circumstances he attempted the creation of a new industry, and began at Paris a process for the treatment of waste silk. This was in 18 19, and his partner, the Baron Idelot de la Ferte, allowed him an annual salary of 5,000 francs and a share of the profits. The patent taken out in November, 182 1, for the preparation and treatment of silk floss, might possibly have restored the fallen fortunes of Lievin Bauwens, but he died of the rupture of an aneurysm on the 17th of March, 1822. His widow, the former Mary Kenyon, of Manchester, after burying him in Pere-la-Chaise, returned to Belgium, and died at St. Bernard in 1834. Five years later the two sons of the manufacturer received the royal licence to use their father's Christian and surname as a patronymic. Lievin was himself the eldest of a family of twelve. By his marriage with Mary Kenyon he had two sons and a daughter — Napoleon, born at Tronchiennes in 1805, who died at Paris in 1869 ; Felix, born at Tronchiennes in 1806, who died in London; and Elvina Marie Bernardine, born at Tronchiennes in 1809, who married M. Louis Rysheuvels, of Antwerp.

'Ghent has not forgotten the memory of the man who laid the foundations of a vast industry, and who united to commercial enterprise public spirit and private generosity. One of her open squares is named in honour of Lievin Bauwens, and there his statute stands to witness that peace has her victories no less than war. Such is one of the many romantic episodes connected with the history of the industrial development of Manchester.'

Further information - Kenyon connection

James Kenyon was born in 1762 and became a textile machine mechanic. Adam and George Murray opened cotton mills in Manchester in the 1790s, one of which was located in Henry Street, Ancoats, where James Kenyon had also moved. James probably worked as a mechanic and later as an overseer at the Henry Street factory.

James was introduced to Bauwens as an expert in assembling and operating the latest textile machine, the Mule Jenny, designed by Samuel Crompton of Bolton, Lancashire. James agreed to work for Bauwens for 39 Brabant Guilders a week.

In November 1798 James Kenyon sailed with Bauwens to Hamburg, travelling with him to Paris and to Ghent, where he managed the textile factory in Meerhem. James was accompanied in Ghent by his wife Maria and their four daughters: Elizabeth, Mary, Sarah and Esther. The second daughter, Mary, married Lieven Bauwens in 1810.

An Account from 1885

'..... At the end of last century the cotton manufacture of Ghent was in a state of decay from the successful competition of the English traders not only in the foreign markets but even in Flanders. Crompton had in 1770 completed his first machine, which he was obliged to take to pieces to avoid its destruction by the mob. and in the following year he gave up his invention to the public, for which he was 32 years after rewarded by a grant from Parliament of £5,000. The invention, although public property, was kept secret by the mill-owners, who maintained a jealous guard over it to prevent its becoming known to their rivals on the Continent.
Lievin Bauwens was the son of a wealthy tanner at Ghent, who, being blessed with a large family, sent him over when seventeen years old to England to make himself acquainted with the processes employed by the English tanners. After visiting the principal manufactories young Bauwens engaged himself a workman in tannery, and when he had learnt all he wanted to know, returned home, and set up a large manufactory, employing 100 workmen. In 1797 he went back to England, accompanied by his friend, Auguste de Pauw, determined to discover the secret of the cotton-spinners' prosperity. He adopted the same plan as before, engaged himself as a workman, and made friends of his fellow-operatives, among whom he soon became very popular. One day, when left alone, he succeeded in taking sketches of the parts of a jenny mule. While reflecting what was doing, with his head between his hands, the manager all at once came in, and, seeing a paper in his hand, rushed upon him to snatch it away, asking him what on earth was doing, and whether he was employed as a spy by foreign manufacturers. Just then the foreman, one James Kenyon, came up, and assured the manager that what Bauwens had done was by his orders. He was satisfied, and returned the drawings. From that moment Bauwens and Kenyon became fast friends. Machines were now ordered from Manchester piece by piece, but the great difficulty was how to get them out of the country. Franz De Pauw went on to London, taking all the plans that the two friends had been able to obtain. Several workmen, who had been gained over, succeeded in getting to Hamburg with parts the machinery concealed in their luggage. Bauwens set up as exporter of colonial produce, in order to send over machines piecemeal in bales of sugar and coffee. Another party of workmen set off for Gravesend. There, through treachery, the police were informed of Bauwen’s manoeuvres, their baggage was seized, and several of the men were arrested. Bauwens only escaped by returning post haste to London, and was in time to warn De Pauw to get all his machinery out of the way, so that when his house was searched nothing could be found. The plans had been secreted by a negro woman under the chairs and behind the wainscotes. Bauwens and De Pauw were able to join the workmen at Hamburg.
Lord Crawford, the British Minister there, did all in his power to tamper with the workmen, but to no purpose. It is said that the ship in which Bauwens was was pursued by English frigates and was saved M. Van Isighun, Maire of Ostend, who ordered the English vessels to be fired upon. Having received intelligence from Lord Crawford, the English Government seized the machines Bauwens had left in London, and in 1798 was proceeded against by the Court King’s Bench, condemned to death by default, and hung and burnt in effigy by the populace of London. His agent in London kept possession of a large sum of money left in his hands. Nearly ruined, Bauwens went from Hamburg to Paris, and established a manufactory there, and then one at Ghent, where he and his brother made an enormous fortune. Instead of keeping his apparatus secret, the works were open to all who liked to visit thorn, and the new system of manufacture soon spread all over Europe. He was made Maire of Ghent, and decorated with the Cross of the Legion of Honour. He introduced Berthollet’s mode of bleaching, and was the first in Belgium to apply steam to industrial purposes. The events of 1814 were a great blow to him. He was compelled to sell his property at a tithe of its value. Once more on the verge of ruin, he set to work with fresh energy, and was the first to establish a manufactory of floss silk in France. He was once more on the road to fortune, when he died suddenly in Paris in 1822. One of his descendants was the founder the cheap dining halls opened in England for working men.'

See Also

Loading...