Léonce Verny
| François Léonce Verny | |
|---|---|
François Léonce Verny
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| Born |
2 December 1837 Pont d'Aubenas, Ardèche, France |
| Died | 2 May 1908 (aged 70) Pont d'Aubenas, Ardèche, France |
| Nationality |
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| Other names | Léonce Verny |
| Occupation | engineer, foreign advisor to Japan |
| Known for | foreign advisor to Meiji Japan |
François Léonce Verny, (2 December 1837 – 2 May 1908) was a French officer and naval engineer who directed the construction of the Yokosuka Naval Arsenal in Japan, as well as many related modern infrastructure projects from 1865 to 1876, thus helping jump-start Japan's modernization.
Léonce Verny was born in Aubenas, Ardèche. He studied at Lyon and then went on to the prestigious École Polytechnique in 1856. He entered the Institute for Applied Maritime Science at Cherbourg in 1858, where he became a Naval Engineer. He worked for the French state in the arsenals of Brest and Toulon.
Verny was sent to Ningbo and Shanghai in China from 1862–1864, to supervise the construction of four gunboats for the Chinese Navy, as well as a new shipyard. During that time, he was also French Vice-Consul in Ningbo.
Japan had started a modernization effort in 1853 and the Tokugawa government decided to build a modern naval shipyard and arsenal in collaboration with the French government. Verny was persuaded to go to Japan by his distant relative, French ambassador Léon Roches in September 1865, who negotiated the substantial annual salary of $10,000. He stayed on after the Meiji Restoration overthrew the Tokugawa government, continuing to work for the new Meiji government for a total of 12 years, returning home to France on 13 March 1876.
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Wikipedia