William-Louis Ternaux

William-Louis Ternaux (1763-1833), the eldest son of Charles-Louis Ternaux (1738-1814), took over the direction of his family’s small woolen cloth business at Sedan (Department of Ardennes) in 1781 and rose to become the leading woolens manufacturer in France under Napoleon and during the Restoration. At the height of his success and fame in 1823, he challenged anyone to provide evidence to the contrary. If anyone, he wrote, could prove “... the existence of a manufacturer, not only in France, but in Europe, who has, at the same time, manufactured a greater amount and a greater value of woolen stuffs, created more new stuffs, experimented more with the use of raw materials and with the texture of fabrics, added more to the value of common woolen cloths, than I have done in the course of my life, I stand ready to pay this researcher the sum of 100,000 francs for his efforts.”

Ternaux was indeed one of the great ‘lanceurs d’affaires’ of the early Industrial Revolution in France. During 1781-1789 he very capably expanded the family woolens business at Sedan from 8 to 150 looms, giving work to over 3,000 men, women and children. The politics of the Revolution interrupted his achievement and led to his exile from France during 1792-98, but he used these years to advantage by studying the woolens industry in England, Germany and Switzerland. He formulated an ambitious business plan for when he would return to France. By the time of the "Exposition of the Products of French Industry" in Paris in 1823, when he composed his daring challenge cited above, he had created and was orchestrating a giant mechanized woolens industry employing overall some 20,000 people. Every requirement, from the raising of sheep to the marketing of finished products, was provided for and integrated. His main factories (usines de fabrication) at Sedan, Reims, Louviers and Verviers (Belgium) employed a total of about 800 looms. He had experimental model factories for new fabrics (ateliers d’essais) at his summer estate at Saint-Ouen, near Paris. In Paris, there were workshops on the rue Mouffetard for constructing and testing new textiles machines and a chain of ten retail shops for displaying his wares, the most important of which was the Cachemire Français at No.3 Place des Victoires. His main offices and private bank were at the same address. He built a dyeworks at Ternes and a Spanish-style wool washing plant at Auteuil. He had commerce houses in cities throughout Europe as well as in New York, Mexico, Valparaiso and Calcutta. His ship, named 'Ternaux’, carried his goods to ports around the world. Ternaux contributed significantly to the introduction and perfection of merino sheep from Spain and, most famously, in 1818-19 he brought Tibetan cashmere goats to France and experimented with their fine down for his famous luxury shawls (cachemires, also named 'Ternauxs'). His private herd of about 150 goats at Saint-Ouen supplied the fine wool for his factories at Reims that specialized in high quality fabrics -- "étoffes de goût et de fantasie en laine."

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Wikipedia