Aimé Thomé de Gamond
Aimé Thomé de Gamond (November 1, 1807 – February 2, 1876) was a French engineer and entrepreneur, known as a pioneer in advocating for the construction of a tunnel under the English Channel at the Strait of Dover. Despite his determination to implement the project, he died ridiculed and bankrupt, as the idea was at odds with the political rivalry between the United Kingdom and France at the time. He has since been recognized as the "father of the tunnel between France and England."
Biography
De Gamond was born in Poitiers in 1807. He studied mining engineering in the Netherlands before returning to France. In 1834, he proposed his first projects for a tunnel beneath the English Channel. Gamond devoted his entire fortune and 30 years of his life to promoting his vision of connecting Britain to continental Europe via a land route. At that time, both England and France believed that remaining separated by the English Channel made more political and economic sense.
In 1856, he presented a proposal to Emperor Napoleon III to excavate a railway tunnel along the seabed from Cape Gris-Nez to East Wear Point, including a midway port that would also serve as a ventilation shaft on the Varne sandbank.[1] The estimated cost was 170 million French francs (just under 7 million British pounds).[2] Thomé de Gamond ultimately presented a total of seven designs.[3] His proposal was finally accepted in 1867 by Napoleon III and Queen Victoria, but the Franco-Prussian War of 1870 ended the project.
His most enthusiastic supporter was his daughter,[Notes 1] who accompanied him to the English Channel in a rowboat so that her father could dive to the seabed and study the chalk substrate, as little geological information about the Weald-Artois anticline was available at the time. Even after exhausting their funds, his daughter gave music lessons to support her father's dream. However, the works never began, and Gamond died bankrupt and humiliated in 1876.[4]
See also
- Channel Tunnel
Notes
- ↑ English Wikipedia refers to his daughter as "Elizabeth," while French Wikipedia uses "Gabrielle." Given that "Elizabeth" is not a typical French name (in French, it is "Isabelle"), this may be a transcription error of "Gabrielle" into English. Historical sources online confirm the name "Gabrielle," while no reliable sources mention "Elizabeth" or "Isabelle."
References
- ↑ https://books.google.com/books?id=AnU5bZT7gRMC&pg=PA6
- ↑ https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1866/08/07/83456856.pdf
- ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20100103073037/http://www.eurotunnel.com/ukcP3Main/ukcCorporate/ukcTunnelInfrastructure/ukcDevelopment/ukpHistory
- ↑ https://archive.org/details/readersdigestboo00harv