Born on in Ferschweiler (Prussia, not far from the Luxembourg border), died on in Rosport (Luxembourg), was an engineer, inventor and industrialist. Son of John Thomas Tudor, originally from Llanarth in Great Britain, Wales, and Marie Loser, originally from Rosport. Le Henri Tudor married Marie-Madeleine Pescatore in Bofferdange. This marriage produced Anne Tudor (), Marie-Antoinette Tudor () and John Tudor (). From The young family lived in the monumental residence that Henry Tudor had built at Rosport.
BIOGRAPHY
During his studies at the Polytechnic School of the Free University of Brussels (1879-1883), Henri Owen Tudor, a citizen of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, developed a passion for electricity, in particular for the dynamo invented by Zenobe Gramme in 1869 and for the incandescent lamp marketed by Edison.
In 1881, Tudor succeeded in developing a system for storing electrical energy using lead accumulators, perfecting Gaston Planté's invention (dating back to 1859). From his home village of Rosport, he managed to commercialise his invention (the large-area electrode) and move on to industrial production.
Le The Tudor brothers coupled a dynamo-electric machine to a threshing machine in their father's barn.. A month later, this electric threshing machine was an attraction at the Diekirch agricultural exhibition.. But electricity still had to be available in the most isolated rural areas.
As early as 1886, Tudor succeeded in convincing the Echternach authorities to replace the paraffin streetlights with electric lighting: the experiment was a success, and Tudor soon had to set up a Belgian limited company for public lighting using electricity to respond to requests from Belgian local authorities, before turning its attention to new markets in Germany, Scandinavia and Central Europe.
At the 1905 exhibition in Liège, Henri Tudor and his friend Maurice Braun presented theEnergy-CarThe Energy-Car was a solution designed to replace the traditional steam engine on a trolley (the locomobile). The Energy-Car was a compact, carefully designed unit. It consisted of an internal combustion engine, a generator, a battery of accumulators and the instrumentation needed for control. It was not a self-propelled vehicle, requiring a tow bar or self-propelled vehicle to move it. It should not be confused with the petro-electric cars marketed from 1897 by Établissements Pieper in Liège, which were equipped with Tudor accumulators manufactured at the Dukinfield factory.
The Energy-Car was "the combination, within the extreme limits of simplification, of all the elements that made up an electrical factory at the time. The Energy-Car was initially assembled at the Rosport factory, but was gradually relocated to the Braun workshops in Brussels. The commercial success of the Energy-Car was mixed: its cost price was high and it was difficult to use. With the advent of rural electricity networks, the electric motor conquered farms without the intervention of the Energy-Car.
Henri Tudor decided to set up in Walloon Brabant, buying the former Cistercian abbey of Florival, in Grez-Doiceau. It was here, from 1901 until 1995, that Tudor batteries were manufactured. An inventor and investor, Tudor was present at the Universal Exhibition in Liège in 1905 with a so-called "energy-car". Perhaps it was there that his path crossed that of Henri Pieper. The two men were involved in developing the Auto-Mixte, with Tudor supplying the electric accumulators. From 1908, he built car batteries at Florival under the name SA Accumulateurs Tudor. The "Auto-Mixte", an exceptional model of hybrid car (petrol, electric battery), met with some success in Europe until the Great War, but ultimately failed to break through.
In Florival (Grez-Doiceau), on the site of the former Tudor factory, in the heart of a large lawn, stands a monument in red stone dedicated to Henri Tudor.The name of the industrialist is the only surviving inscription on the front of the weathered monument, while a bas-relief by Georges Vandevoorde (1878-1964) depicts the left profile of the bearded industrialist. A rhododendron plant looks as if it will continue to flourish at the foot of this stone reminder of past prosperity. The Tudor factory ceased to exist in 1995. Battery manufacturer Tudor was succeeded by distributor Exide Technologies, which continues to occupy the buildings that the Luxembourg investor had built in the 19th century.e century.
Sources :
https://connaitrelawallonie.wallonie.be/en/etiquettes/tudor-henri
https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henri_Tudor
Photo credits :
https://www.industrie.lu/TudorRosport.html
