Edouard Peltzer

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Edouard Peltzer de Clermont

Édouard Henri Alexander Peltzer (born March 17, 1859 in Verviers , † April 8, 1934 ibid) was a Belgian cloth manufacturer and politician.

Live and act

Édouard Peltzer was the son of Paul Nicolas Édouard Peltzer (1829–1903) and Mathilde Simons (1839–1901) and brother of Olga Zanders, nee. Peltzer and brother-in-law of Paul von Andreae .

  • Peltzer cloth factory in Verviers before 1890

  • Former Cloth factory, Verviers (2005)

Édouard's great-grandfather Johann Heinrich Peltzer, who descended from the Stolberg line of the Protestant copper master family Peltzer , had founded the "cloth factory Peltzer" in Verviers in 1785, which his son Henri Édouard as "Lieutenant & Peltzer" and his grandson Guillaume Auguste (1831-1893) and Édouard's father Paul Nicolas Édouard Peltzer continued as " Peltzer & Fils ". The company, which had specialized in the manufacture of woolen fabrics and leather, had over the years had plants in Gérardchamps in Verviers, Renoupré near Andrimont and “Peltzer et Fils” in Eupen, as well as branches in Buenos Aires , Brussels and, since 1885, in Czestochowa (Poland; at that time Russia) was expanded.

After training as an engineer and the death of his father and his two uncles, Édouard Peltzer took over the management of the family business and converted it into a stock corporation under Belgian law (Société Anonyme / SA) in 1931 , which was founded in 1965 by the Iwan Simonis company with the new focus exclusive bed linen and precious pool towels were taken over.

Peltzer was a member of the "Société industrial et commerciale de Verviers" ("Industrial and Commercial Company Verviers") and for several years president of this society, which had been co-founded in 1863 by his uncle and first president Henri Philippe Peltzer on Édouard's initiative in the year Merged with the Verviers Chamber of Commerce in 1923.

In addition, he was also politically active and sat from 1886 to 1892 in the Provincial Council of the Province of Liège . In 1905 he was elected senator for the Verviers district for the Liberal Party of Belgium, founded in 1846 (Parti libéral, this went into the Mouvement Réformateur in 1961 ) and held this mandate until 1921.

Peltzer was married to Anne de Clermont (1843–1938) from Paris ; the marriage remained childless. The couple were among the richest citizens in the region and used a large part of their wealth for social projects.

Châteaux Peltzer

Château Peltzer in Spa

Together with his four cousins, the sons of his uncle Auguste Guillaume Peltzer, Édouard Peltzer acquired the 100 hectare property "Domaine de Nivezé" in 1896, which had previously belonged to the industrialist Edmond Joseph Adolphe Simonis. It was divided into five parcels, of which Édouard Peltzer received the 14 hectare parcel "Le Neubois". In 1902 he had a villa built as a summer residence according to plans by the architect Charles Soubre in the Anglo-Norman style . In this villa he housed the German Kaiser Wilhelm II several times between April and November 1918 , who had set up one of his headquarters in the neighboring Spa during the final phase of the First World War and had an underground concrete bunker built in the villa for his protection.

After the war, the villa was occupied from 1918 to 1919, initially by the chairman of the Permanent Inter-Allied Armistice Commission in Spa, the French general Alphonse Pierre Nudant, and then until 1920 by the Marshal of France , Ferdinand Foch .

After the death of Édouard's wife Anne de Clermont, her cousin Adrienne Osterrieth-Peltzer inherited the area with the villa, who in turn sold the property to the Catholic association Foyers de Charité in 1957 . Years later, the association gave up the property, which had been converted into a luxury restaurant in 1993, but whose operators went bankrupt in 2012; since then the castle has been up for sale.

In memory of the Peltzer couple, a street in Spa was named “Avenue Peltzer de Clermont”.

Château Peltzer in Verviers

Édouard Peltzer's main residence was still in Verviers, where he owned a castle-like villa built between 1904 and 1906 according to the plans of the architect Auguste-Charles Vivroux (1859-1920). After the death of his widow, the property fell to the city of Verviers by will with the condition that a museum or school be set up there. The city council then set up a training workshop for young girls there in 1940, which was taken over by the Province of Liège in 1948 and part of the provincial schools for young girls of Verviers, which are now called "IPES Verviers" ("Institut provincial d'enseignement secondaire de Verviers ") wear. The castle itself was demolished in 1963 to make way for a modern school building.

In memory of the Peltzer family, a street in Verviers was also renamed “Rue Peltzer de Clermont”.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Norbert Gilson: History of the textile industry in the Verviers area, Eupen, Aachen , Rheinisches Industriemuseum 1997, p. 36/37 ( PDF )
  2. ^ Société industrial et commerciale de Verviers , brief portrait on bestor.be
  3. ↑ Les châteaux Peltzer de Nivezé , information on sparealites.be
  4. ^ Off for Château Peltzer , in Grenz-Echo from January 28, 2012
personal data
SURNAME Peltzer, Édouard
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Peltzer, Édouard Henri Alexander (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Belgian cloth manufacturer and politician
DATE OF BIRTH March 17, 1859
PLACE OF BIRTH Verviers
DATE OF DEATH April 8, 1934
Place of death Verviers