Gédéon Thommen

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Gédéon Thommen (* December 7, 1831 in Waldenburg BL ; † December 18, 1890 ibid) was an entrepreneur and politician from Waldenburg in the Swiss canton of Basel-Landschaft .

Gédéon Thommen (1831–1890). Portrait from around 1880

Life

Gédéon Thommen was the son of Martin Thommen ( Seiler ) and Catharina Schneider. He had ten siblings. Six of them died shortly after birth. Gédéon grew up with four of his sisters. After primary school in Waldenburg and the district school in Aarau , he completed a commercial apprenticeship in Geneva . This was followed by a rope apprenticeship in his father's company. He married Marie-Louise Jacot-Baron, from Le Locle NE. They had nine children, one of whom died shortly after birth: Hermann Ernst (1857–1890), Karl Marcel (1859–?), Robert Alexander (1860–1876), Walter Oskar (1861–?), Fanny Mathilde (1862– 1928), Paul Alphonse (1864–1944), Johann Adolf (1865–?), Friedrich Erwin (1867–1908) and Hans Theodor (* / † 1868).

Military and politics

In the Swiss military he was an artillery officer, captain and battery commander .

During the revision movements , which lasted in the canton of Basel-Landschaft from 1861 to 1864, Thommen was with the anti-revisionists. From 1864 to 1890 he was in the district administrator in the radical fraction . In the parliamentary elections in 1875 he was elected to the National Council, to which he belonged until 1890. He was a member of the Radical Democratic Group of the Federal Assembly founded in 1878 .

In 1854 he was the parish clerk of Waldenburg and from 1860 to 1890 its councilor . He was a member of the Waldenburg community and district school administration.

economy

Waldenburg station with locomotive 1 «Dr. M. Bider »and Villa Thommen. Picture around 1892

In 1865 District Administrator Thommen was appointed to the committee for the construction of a railway in the Waldenburgertal . From 1857 he was on the board of directors of the Société d'Horlogerie à Waldenburg, which he took over in 1859. Thommen was a co-founder of the Waldenburger Bezirksblatt in 1876 .

When Martin Bider died in June 1878 , Thommen had to take over his office as President in the Comité for the construction of a railway in the Waldenburgertal and the management of the upcoming business. On November 25, 1879, he headed the founding meeting of the Waldenburgerbahn (WB) and the subsequent railway construction. Construction work began in March 1880 and timetable operations began on November 1 of the same year. From 1880 until the end of his life in December 1890, Thommen was president of the Waldenburgerbahn. He owes his current level of awareness to his commitment to the realization of this project.

From 1867 to 1874 he was a member of the board of directors of Basellandschaftliche Kantonalbank (BLKB) and in 1871 he was vice-president of the bank council of BLKB. From 1877 to 1890 he was also on the board of directors of Basellandschaftliche Hypothekenbank. Thommen was also a donor for educational and cultural purposes in Waldenburg.

Memorial stone for Gédéon Thommen in Waldenburg
Memorial stone for Gédéon Thommen in Waldenburg

Family business
After the death of his father, Thommen continued to run his parents' rope factory.

In 1857 he was on the board of directors of the Société d'Horlogerie à Waldenburg, founded in 1853 by the municipality of Waldenburg . The company generated a large deficit, which put a heavy burden on the municipal treasury. So Thommen was able to take over the community operation with Louis Tschopp. After Thommen's restructuring, the company began to recover. Tschopp left the company in 1869. From 1870 on, Thommen called his company Gédéon Thommen - watch manufacture .

In 1885 Gédéon Thommen had a magnificent villa built above the Waldenburgerbahn station. The house known throughout the valley as Villa Thommen or Villa Reseda was shown on many postcards . The villa was and is considered to be the showpiece of Waldenburg. In the years 2002 to 2004 the property was completely renovated. Care was taken to restore the original condition as much as possible. Today the showpiece, now named Villa Gelpke , is in the hands of Gédéon Thommen's great-grandchildren.

After Thommens death, his son Paul took Alphonse the Gédéon Thommen - Uhrenfabrikation which until May 2015 under the name of Revue Thommen consisted AG.

Honor

WB G 3/3, 5, G. Thommen

On August 26, 1902, another steam locomotive of the G 3/3 series was put into service on the Waldenburgerbahn . This was given the company number 5 and bears the name G. Thommen in memory of the railway co-founder Gédéon Thommen .

literature

  • Erich Gruner : The Swiss Federal Assembly 1848–1920. Volume 1. Francke, Bern 1966.
  • Hans Leupin: 100 years of the Waldenburgerbahn, 1880–1980. Verlag Dietschi, Waldenburg 1980.

Web links

Commons : Gédéon Thommen  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Notes and individual references

The connections
  1. ↑ Switzerland-wide from 1860 to 1874
  2. ↑ The liberals were politically more right-wing, the radicals and the liberals more center-left
  3. ↑ This is one of the forerunner groups of the Liberal Democratic Party (FDP) founded in 1894
  4. ↑ The paper has been called Waldenburger Anzeiger since August 10, 1994
  5. ^ Society for watchmaking in Waldenburg
  6. ↑ Deficit over CHF 35,400
  7. ↑ Canton Basel-Landschaft: Chronicle for the month of August 1953 ( [1] ).
  8. ↑ This locomotive has been restored and is still in the Waldenburgerbahn's vehicle fleet and pulled the nostalgic steam train with rolling stock from the early days until 2015 .
personal data
SURNAME Thommen, Gédéon
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss entrepreneurs and politicians
DATE OF BIRTH December 7, 1831
PLACE OF BIRTH Waldenburg BL
DATE OF DEATH December 18, 1890
Place of death Waldenburg BL