Gustave Léon Pastor

Gustave Léon Pastor (born October 10, 1832 in Liège , † September 2, 1922 in Jemeppe-sur-Meuse near Seraing ) was a German-Belgian metallurgical engineer and industrialist.

Live and act

The son of the worsted yarn manufacturer and later General Director of SA Cockerill in Seraing , Konrad Gustav Pastor (1796–1890), was hired by his father in the Cockerill works in 1854 after studying metallurgy , where he worked a few years later under his younger brother George Octave Pastor (1835-1915), who had followed his father in his position as general manager in 1865, was promoted to operations manager. In 1871 both brothers left SA Cockerill at the same time and while George Oktave joined the Rheinische Stahlwerke in Duisburg - Meiderich founded by Barthold Suermondt as Technical Director , Gustav Léon ventured into self-employment and founded the steelworks "Rossius" with F. de Rossius , Pastor & Co "in Angleur near Liège , which he also directed and in 1878 transferred to the" SA Acières d'Angleur ".

After this transaction , Gustave Léon followed the call of his brother George Oktave to Duisburg-Meiderich and took over the technical management of the Rheinische Stahlwerke as his successor. Just one year later, Pastor was the first to obtain a license from Sidney Gilchrist Thomas for the new Thomas process for both the steelworks and the Hörder Bergwerks- und Hütten-Verein , both of which had previously worked according to the Bessemer process to acquire. This innovation, but also the distribution of sub-licenses, led to a rapid increase in the company over the next 15 years during the term of patent protection. For this, the Rheinische Stahlwerke were honored with the silver state medal at the Rheinisch-Westphalian industrial and commercial exhibition in Düsseldorf in 1880 .

In 1884, Pastor expanded his work with the commissioning of a Siemens-Martin factory , which replaced the previous puddle and crucible furnace processes. In addition, he expanded his product range to include profile iron for the construction industry and shipbuilding and had two blast furnaces built in Meiderich in 1889/90 in order to counteract the price agreements of the blast furnace cartel.

With this last innovation, Pastor left the operational business and moved back to his Belgian homeland in Jemeppe-sur-Meuse. Nevertheless, from 1896 to 1911 he accepted an election to the supervisory board of the Rheinische Stahlwerke and was also a consultant for various plants in Andenne, Belgium and in Marpent in the French canton of Maubeuge-Nord .

Together with his wife Charlotte Reine Agnes, née Robert (* 1823), pastor was also active in several charitable areas in his home town of Jemeppe.

Literature and Sources

• Hermann Friedrich Macco : Contributions to the Genealogy of Rhenish noble and patrician families , Vol. IV: History and genealogy of the Pastor family , 1905
• Hermann Friedrich Macco: Stahl u. Eisen 42 , 1922, p. 1863;
• C.-F. Baumann: Gustave Léon Pastor, technical reorganizer of the Rheinische Stahlwerke , in: Niederrheinkammer 43 , 1987, p. 306;
• ders., in: W. Burkhard (ed.), Niederrheinische Unternehmer , 1990, p. 54 f .;
• Manfred Rasch:  Pastor, Gustave Léon. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 20, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2001, ISBN 3-428-00201-6 , p. 94 ( digitized version ).