Fryderyk Skarbek

Fryderyk Florian Skarbek (15 February 1792 – 25 September 1866), a member of the Polish nobility, was an economist, novelist, historian, social activist, administrator, politician, and penologist who designed the Pawiak Prison of World War II ill fame.

He is also known for his friendship with his godson Frédéric Chopin and Chopin's family. His son Józef would marry Chopin's erstwhile fiancée, Maria Wodzińska.

Fryderyk (in English, "Frederick") Skarbek lived during a complex historic period: beginning in independent Poland, continuing from 1793 in Prussian Poland, later in the Duchy of Warsaw (1807–13) created by Napoleon, then from 1815 in the Kingdom of Poland, whose King was the Tsar of Russia.

Fryderyk Skarbek was born in Toruń, son of Kacper Skarbek, whose aristocratic family had roots dating back to medieval times, and of Ludwika Fenger, daughter of a rich Toruń merchant of German descent. He was the first of four children. Around 1800 the family, which had lived at Izbica Kujawska, moved to Żelazowa Wola. In 1802 Nicolas Chopin (the composer's father) was hired as the children's teacher.

In 1808 Fryderyk graduated from the Warsaw Lyceum (a secondary school in Warsaw). In 1809 he left for Paris, where he studied economics. In 1812 he returned to Poland and worked as a translator in the Duchy's administration; then he devoted some years to local administration of the Sochaczew district.

In 1818 he became professor of economics at the University of Warsaw. He received a doctorate from the University of Kraków in 1819.

In 1820-30 he published several books on economics, in Polish (1821, 1824) and in French (1829).

Under the influence of Stanislaw Staszic, he became interested in questions concerning the poor, charity houses, and prisons; he worked for the department of prisons and charitable establishments of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. When in 1828 he went to Paris to publish a book, the government commissioned him to report on prisons in Holland and Great Britain; on returning to Warsaw, he designed the Pawiak prison (completed 1835).

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