Paul Decauville

French businessman (1846–1922)

In the history of enterprise, Paul Decauville is one of the names that keeps returning.

The record lists Paul Decauville as French businessman (1846–1922).

Paul Decauville was born at Évry in 1846. His recorded nationality is France. He was educated at Collège Sainte-Barbe.

Industrialisation changed the scale of everything: factories, railways, joint-stock capital and the first modern corporations.

He worked as inventor, entrepreneur and industrialist.

His recorded holdings include château des Tourelles.

Business reputations are unusually sensitive to the decade in which they were made.

Recognition followed: Officer of the Legion of Honour (1889) and Knight of the Legion of Honour (1878).

That the business was built from France shaped it: capital, regulation and market size differ by country, and they decide what is even attemptable.

Paul Decauville died in 1922, aged 76. What remains is the enterprise and its consequences, which is the only durable measure of a commercial life.

Achievements

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