Beauval Saints

There were three Saint brothers living in Beauval, Somme, France; their names were Pierre François Saint, François Saint, and Aimable Saint. These three brothers started a textile business in Beauval. Parts of the business they founded still exist today and information about it is available here Saint Frieres company

Pierre François Saint (b.1788 d.1847) and his wife Marie Madeleine Appoline Moignet had five children in Beauval; Pierre François Saint (b.1812), Victor Auguste Saint (b.1814), Marie Anne Appoline Saint (b.1817), Jean Baptiste Saint (b.1820), Charles Saint (b.1826) and François Xavier Saint (b.1829).

François Saint had two sons (François-Joseph Saint and Jules-Abel Saint) and two daughters, one of which was married to Charles Saint.

Aimable Saint had one son (Jean-Baptiste Saint whose poor health prevented him from involvement), and two daughters, one married to Victor Saint and the other to Candas Saint.

Charles Saint continued to build up the family textile business in and around Beauval, Somme which at its peak employed 11,000 workers. Today there is a street named after him "Rue Charles Saint" near the cemetery in Beauval.

There is a Saint family mausoleum in the Beauval Communal Cemetery which is shown in the picture below:

Photo by Teffou (panoramio.com)

The following information is available at the site http://www.doullens-tourisme.com/visiter/beauval-et-les-saint-fr%C3%A8res/ and was translated from the original French

Beauval, home of the Saint Brothers textile company "Saint-Frères"

The Village of Beauval is known as the original center of activity of the Saint-Frères textile company. Currently the remains of the mill dating back to 1896 and the three housing estates are still present (named Doullens, Quénot and Avesnes). The cooperative "La Prévoyance" bears the date 1910.

The factory was taken over by Beauval Boussac, Agache, Willot, and finally Rosenlew, which closed the factory in 2004.

A little history ...

In the early nineteenth century, three brothers with the surname SAINT had organized labour in and around their hometown of Beauval, weaving canvas sacks using hemp and flax. Weaving was done by hand, at home by farm workers after work. The brothers would then pick up and sell and the finished product. By 1825 in and around Beauval there were hundreds of small weaving craftsmen. With the advent of jute in 1843 the first spinning mill was installed in Picardy.

The Saint brothers immediately realized they could take advantage of this new material, which was cheaper than flax. Having developed a loom specially adapted to jute, they built workshops in Flixecourt, Harondel, Saint-Ouen l'Etoile and the Somme.

The jute industry finally came to settle in force in the Beauval area; during a four year period from 1898 to 1902 three major factories were built there: one in Beauval by the Saint-Frères company, the other two are Doullens, one by the company "TH. SUEUR Fils & Compagnie" and the other by the Saint-Frères company. Charles Saint died soon after and later buried in a magnificent mausoleum in Beauval.

This is the Saint-Frères company who developed a heavy duty jute loom in 1856, ninety years after the invention of

the circular loom that came to revolutionize the ancient technique of weaving. This plant in

Beauval with the first factory equipped with such equipment which then spread worldwide.

In 1965, the plant at Beauval alone accounted for approximately 15% of the French production of jute. The factory closed in 2004 and the buildings were destroyed in 2012.