Industrialist and banker

Jules Paul Benjamin Delessert came from an old middle-class Swiss family. His father was a silk trader in Lyon, then a banker in Paris. He was born in 1773 and when he was very young he was sent to Britain to continue his education, where he attended Adam Smith’s lectures and witnessed Watt’s experiments. At the age of 22 he followed in his father’s footsteps in the banking world. In 1802, he became director of the Bank of France, a position he held for 45 years. He founded one of the first French cotton mills in Passy and then a sugar refinery. Napoleon awarded him the legion of honour for his development of sugar production from sugar beets.

Philanthropist and politician

He was also concerned about the misery of his times and carried out many philanthropic initiatives.In 1795, he became manager of a charitable organisation in the Mail district.In 1800, he created the first efficient Rumford 

fireplace, forerunner of the soup kitchens. In 1801, he set up a company to promote industrial training. Then in 1802, he set up a philanthropic society aimed at promoting social inventions or innovations that could help the poor: setting up dispensaries, patronage of mutual assistance societies, etc. He sat on the General Board of Poorhouses and the royal society for prison improvement. He thought that workers and the destitute should not be assisted but that help should be provided to those whose situation had been worsened by growing industrialisation. The intellectual and financial emancipation of the lower classes was a priority for him, the common thread throughout his philanthropic life. Right from the beginning of the Restoration, he was one of the pioneers of various public training systems. He sat on the Board of Improvement of Arts and Crafts and served as a member of the Chamber of Deputies for the Seine from 1817 to 1824, and then from 1827 to 1842.

Benjamin Delessert and the Caisse d’Epargne

His main accomplishment was the creation of the Caisse d’Epargne in Paris in 1818. The original idea of the Caisse d’Epargne, far from any charitable principles, was an act of faith in mankind and people’s capacity to improve his situation. The core of the project involved financial education, notions of social benefits, the fight against pauperism, social protection and a concern about protecting society against social instability. Following his friend, Duke François de La Rochefoucauld-Liancourt, in 1829 he took over the presidency of the Caisse d’Epargne and never stepped down from that position. Until his death, in 1847, he assisted in the first phase of Caisses that were set up and in 1835 brought to a vote the first acts of parliament that legally defined them. In his will, he requested that only the following inscription should be placed on his tomb: “Here lies one of the main founders of the Caisses d’Epargne in France”.