Alexandre-Théodore Lavalley, (October 9, 1821 – July 20, 1892) was an engineer and French politician. Paul Borel and Lavalley were contractors of the

Suez Canal Company Suez (, , , ) is a seaport city with a population of about 800,000 in north-eastern Egypt, located on the north coast of the Gulf of Suez on the Red Sea, near the southern terminus of the Suez Canal. It is the capital and largest city of the ...

who designed, built, and operated the dredging machines that finished excavation of the

Suez Canal The Suez Canal (; , ') is an artificial sea-level waterway in Egypt, Indo-Mediterranean, connecting the Mediterranean Sea to the Red Sea through the Isthmus of Suez and dividing Africa and Asia (and by extension, the Sinai Peninsula from the rest ...

from 1864 to 1869 after the use of

forced labor Forced labour, or unfree labour, is any work relation, especially in modern or early modern history, in which people are employed against their will with the threat of destitution, detention, or violence, including death or other forms of ...

was disallowed.

Biography

Education

Alexandre Lavalley finished his preparatory studies in

Tours Tours ( ; ) is the largest city in the region of Centre-Val de Loire, France. It is the Prefectures in France, prefecture of the Departments of France, department of Indre-et-Loire. The Communes of France, commune of Tours had 136,463 inhabita ...

, entered the

École Polytechnique (, ; also known as Polytechnique or l'X ) is a ''grande école'' located in Palaiseau, France. It specializes in science and engineering and is a founding member of the Polytechnic Institute of Paris. The school was founded in 1794 by mat ...

and left after studying

military engineering Military engineering is loosely defined as the art, science, and practice of designing and building military works and maintaining lines of military transport and military communications. Military engineers are also responsible for logistics b ...

in 1842. He resigned his commission and spent a few years in England, where he became a mechanic and acquired practical knowledge about machinery.

Engineering career

Photo of a dredge machine taken circa 1870 Upon returning to France, he joined Ernest Goüin & Cie, a company that built locomotives, where he was trusted to manage the locomotive plants. He also designed lighthouses on the Black Sea, created a

tunnel boring machine A tunnel boring machine (TBM), also known as a "mole" or a "worm", is a machine used to excavate tunnels. TBMs are an alternative to drilling and blasting methods and "hand mining", allowing more rapid excavation through hard rock, wet or dry so ...

in Lithuania, and created a machine to dredge ports in Russia. Paul Borel and Lavalley were hired as subcontractors by the Suez Canal Company to finish the excavation of the Suez Canal. They were responsible for the design, construction, and operation of the dredging machines that finished the excavation from 1864 to 1869 after the use of corvee labor was disallowed by the Ottoman administrator of Egypt, Ismail. In 1876, he obtained a concession to work on the port of Pointe des Galets in Réunion and to build a railroad linking the port to the interior of the island. In 1881, the British railway entrepreneur Sir Edward Watkin and Lavalley were in the Anglo-French Submarine Railway Company that conducted exploratory work on both sides of the

English Channel The English Channel, also known as the Channel, is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that separates Southern England from northern France. It links to the southern part of the North Sea by the Strait of Dover at its northeastern end. It is the busi ...

. On the English side a diameter Beaumont-English boring machine dug a pilot tunnel from Shakespeare Cliff. On the French side, a similar machine dug from

Sangatte Sangatte (; ) is a Communes of France, commune in the Pas-de-Calais Departments of France, department on the northern coast of France on the English Channel. The name is of Flemish origin, meaning hole or gap in the sand. Engineering Sangatte i ...

. The project was abandoned in May 1882, owing to British political and press campaigns asserting that a tunnel would compromise Britain's national defences.Wilson pp. 14–21 These early works were encountered more than a century later during the TML project.

Politician

Lavalley was elected on January 25, 1885, as a

Senator A senate is a deliberative assembly, often the upper house or Legislative chamber, chamber of a bicameral legislature. The name comes from the Ancient Rome, ancient Roman Senate (Latin: ''Senatus''), so-called as an assembly of the senior ...

representing Calvados. He sat in the left of the Senate, but voted with the majority for the new military law and for the colonial policies. He was absent during the vote for the breakup of the French Crown Jewels. Finally, Lavalley voted for the reestablishment of district elections (February 13, 1889), for a draft of the Lisbonne Law that would have restricted the freedom of the press, and against the procedure of the Senate against the general Georges Ernest Boulanger.

Sources

Notes and references