Louis De Geer (1587-1652)

Louis De Geer (17 November 1587, in Liège – 19 June 1652, in Amsterdam) was a Dutch merchant and industrialist of Walloon origin. He is considered the father of Swedish industry for introducing Walloon blast furnaces in Sweden. He produced cannons for the German Protestant movement, the Dutch navy and the Dutch East India Company and the Dutch West India Company.

De Geer was the son of the iron industrialist and merchant Louis de Geer de Gaillarmont (1535-1602), and Jeanne de Neille (1557-1641). His father had previously (1563) been married with Maria de Jalhéa (died 1578). In 1592, one of De Geer's half-sisters, Marie de Geer (1574-1609) married Elias Trip () (1569-1636), a Dutch merchant and a director of the Dutch East India Company who lived in Dordrecht. Presumably due to ongoing turmoil in the Prince-Bishopric of Liège as well as his conversion to Protestantism, De Geer's father sold his properties in Liège in 1595 and followed his daughter to Dordrecht, where since 1589 a neighborhood had existed populated by merchants from Liège. In 1603, his daughter Margaretha de Geer (1583–1672) married Jacob Trip (1575–1661), brother and partner of Elias, further cementing the merchant families' relationship.

Johannes Polyander appears to have been an important teacher of Louis Jr. in Dordrecht. From 1605 to 1608, De Geer trained as coppersmith in Roanne in France, after which he started his first business in La Rochelle. Returning to Dordrecht in 1611 he associated himself with his brothers-in-law. In 1612, he married Adrienne Gérard (ca 1590–1634), also originally from Liège, with whom he had 16 children. Having earned a fortune as a banker and industrialist he moved his family to Amsterdam in 1615. Owing to his extensive travels he received a good education in business.

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