Sully Lombard

Jules Sully Lombard (born January 25, 1866 in Lunel near Montpellier, † January 7, 1951 in Paris ) was a French Calvinist pastor. Today he is best known for his social and urban development work in the 20th arrondissement of Paris, where a square is named after him. His Alsatian wife Jeanne Marguerite Bernard (born June 16, 1868 in Paris; † January 24, 1964 there), whose mother was born Gontard, was descended from Huguenots like Sully Lombard .

Jules Sully Lombard

Spiritual career

In 1892 Sully Lombard submitted his thesis on proselytizing Tahiti. On December 11, 1892, he was ordained pastor of the French Reformed Church. From 1895 Lombard was pastor in the 20th arrondissement. On March 27, 1904, the church he had built was consecrated to the parish of Béthanie he founded (185 rue des Pyrénées in the 20th arrondissement), which is still in use today. Lombard remained pastor of Béthanie until his retirement on November 27, 1926. He then studied law (exams on October 2, 1928) and became a lawyer in the 20th arrondissement of Paris to provide legal assistance to those in need free of charge.

Social and humanitarian work

From 1911 to 1946 Lombard was the chaplain of the "Légion d'Honneur de Saint-Denis et d'Ecouen" (Legion of Honor). In 1914 he initiated handicraft groups for women whose husbands were on the front lines in order to support their families. In addition, he had special coal contingents stored so that the poorest families had heating material for the winter. From 1916 to 1918 Lombard worked as a military chaplain. After the end of the First World War, he cared for war orphans. In the twenties he created a social station for the poor in Belleville and Béthanie (“Solidarité”). In the forties, increasingly hard of hearing, he withdrew and continued his charity as a private citizen (residing at 8 rue Jules Siegfried).

Inauguration of the La Campagne à Paris district in 1926

Urban development

Lombard's best-known voluntary work was the founding and later the chairmanship of the urban building association “La Campagne à Paris”. Until around 1870, the large gypsum quarry "Carrière du Père Rousset" was located at the site of today's La Campagne à Paris settlement in the 20th arrondissement. The site has been deserted since then. When the avenue de la République and the avenue Gambetta were laid out at the time of Haussmann's urban renewal, the quarry was filled with the overburden and rubble from the road works. The area was still used as a debris dump, so that gradually a flat hill emerged that exceeded street level by several meters. As in the case of the "Buttes Chaumont" in the 19th arrondissement, where there is now a park, the hill was planted to prevent landslides. Initially, no building permit was issued. It was not until 1907, following a conference organized by the former minister Jules Siegfried, at which he discussed the law on the financing of affordable housing passed in 1894, that the municipal building association “La Campagne à Paris” acquired the 15,800 m² “Le Plateau” called terrain. At the general assembly in October 1907, Jules Sully Lombard was elected vice-president of the association (president was the lawyer and publicist Irénée Blanc.) Blanc was commissioned to finance the planned settlement with the help of the state funding agency HBM ("Habitation à Bon Marché") to organize so that poor families could build private houses on a loan basis. This happened in 1912 after Blanc had obtained building permits, which had previously been refused for security reasons. An expert examination had shown that the fear of landslides was irrelevant.

On February 13, 1913, Jules Sully Lombard was officially named co-founder ("Cofondateur") of La Campagne à Paris together with Jules Siegfried and Irénée Blanc. Shortly before the First World War, when the project came to a temporary standstill, 36 houses had already been completed. Construction work continued in the twenties. On March 13, 1923, Irénée Blanc resigned in protest at the Board of Directors' pricing policy, but remained a legal advisor, and on April 11, 1923 Jules Sully Lombard was elected President to succeed him. From 1923 to 1926 he gave the association new impetus: Lombard successfully advertised the interests of the association with the city authorities - as a result, loans were approved for the construction of 53 more houses - and secondly, he increased the pressure on the construction companies, so that the construction work was already underway Could be completed in 1926. In total the settlement consisted of 89 row houses. The official inauguration took place on June 20, 1926. Lombard gave a lengthy speech on this occasion. In it, Lombard traced the history of the development of the settlement and paid tribute to the relief made in housing construction by the financing company "Habitation à Bon Marché" (HBM, now HLM). Due to his positive experience, Lombard started two similar projects (in Thiais and in what is now rue Georges Risler in Deuil-la-Barre) (Risler was HBM's CEO). In March 1927 he resigned from the office of President of La Campagne à Paris to remain secretary; his successor, the new president Monsieur Bernard, liquidated the association in 1955.

The goal of this movement that every French family owns their own house and property could not be achieved in the originally intended breadth after the Second World War; real estate prices today are far from enabling every family to own a home.

Honors

• 1923: "Diplôm d'Honneur de la Caisse des Ecoles"
• 1924: Silver medal "du Ministére du Travail et de la Prévoyance Sociale"
• 1925: Lombard becomes "Officier d'Academie et reçoit les félicitations du Ministére de l'instruction Publique" in gratitude for his services to the war orphans
• 1926: Knight of the Legion of Honor
• 1927: Gold medal from the Ministry of Labor "et Commandeur de Mérite Social"
• 1932: "Officier de l'Instruction Publique"
• 2005: Since February 12, 2005, a square in the 20th arrondissement near Porte de Bagnolet (at the foot of La Campagne à Paris) has been named after Jules Sully Lombard.

literature

• Michel Dansel: Paris 20e. Published in the series “Historie des arrondissements de Paris”, Editions Jean-Claude Simoën, 1977