The mines of Huelgoat-Poullaouen were particularly pioneering from a technological standpoint. They were 18th-century France’s first introduction to such technologies, such machines and such know-how, a country with almost no mining tradition. The English and German technicians brought with them and introduced their methods and practises which were observed, learnt and repeated by students at the new mining school, and could be seen especially in their later techniques. Through the encouragement of its on-site directors, the facility was also used as a place of experimentation and even provided for a form of scientific tourism, with visits from curious and eminent personalities such as Lavoisier, who accompanied Louis-Philippe d’Orléans, the Duke of Chartres and the King’s cousin, in 1778.
In Huelgoat-Poullaouen one could observe a huge variety of specialised techniques, such as its subterranean architecture, the construction of water pump systems or furnace management, which shows that this specialist knowledge resided in the very movements and observations of the specialised workforce. In addition, certain machine models were completely unique on a national scale. This was the case of the water column machine, installed by Director Juncker, from Alsace in 1831. It used the difference in weight of the water coming in via a higher canal and the water going out via a canal lower down to activate the pistons which sucked water up from deep in the earth. It was an extremely precise mechanism that was greatly admired by the different visitors.
However, the mining facility in central Brittany was too far away from other industrial zones in France, which gradually cut it off from investment and the circulation of specialist knowledge and workforces. The facility was unable to give up the water/canal/wood energy model in favour of a coal/steam power/steel model. A steam-powered engine was installed in 1747 (the first of its kind in Brittany), which worked well but was not financially viable given the absence of nearby coal mining resources. And so an industrial hub which had been the height of technology during the 18th century went into decline, becoming first simply run-of-the-mill and later a facility that was so far behind the times that its final closure became inevitable.
Translation: Tilly O'Neill
