Édouard Louis Joseph, Baron Empain, was a wealthy Walloon Belgian engineer, entrepreneur, financier and industrialist, as well as an amateur Egyptologist. During World War I he became a known Major-General.
Early life
Empain was born at Belœil, Belgium, and was the son of schoolteacher François Julien Empain and his wife Catherine. He went into business with his brother, Baron François Empain and other family members, and amassed a great fortune. Empain began his career a draughtsman at a metallurgical company, Société métallurgique, in 1878, and became involved in railway construction when he noticed that transport infrastructure in the countryside was inadequate. After success in Belgium with the Liège-Jemeppe line, his companies developed several railway lines in France, including the creation of the Paris Métro. Because he felt that he depended too much on the banks for his industrial plans, in 1881 he founded his own bank, Banque Empain, which later became the Belgian Industrial Bank. The Empain group of companies expanded greatly throughout the 1890s, constructing electric urban tramlines in Europe, Russia, China, the Belgian Congo, and in Cairo, Egypt. Desiring to also be independent of electricity producers, Empain also was involved in forming a number of electricity companies to power his projects.
Édouard Empain arrived in Egypt in January 1904, intending to rescue one of the projects of his company S.A. des Chemins de Fer de la Basse-Egypte; being the construction of a railway line linking Mansourah to Matariya. In 1906, Empain established the Cairo Electric Railways and Heliopolis Oases Company, which bought a very large stretch of desert to the northeast of Cairo at a low price from the Egyptian government. Commencing in 1906 this company proceeded with the building of the new town of Heliopolis, in the desert ten kilometers from the center of Cairo. It was designed as a "city of luxury and leisure", with broad avenues and equipped with all necessary conveniences and infrastructure; water, drains, electricity, hotel facilities, such as the Heliopolis Palace Hotel and Heliopolis House, and recreational amenities including a golf course, racetrack and park. In addition, there was housing for rent, offered in a range of innovative design types targeting specific social classes with detached and terraced villas, apartment buildings, tenement blocks with balcony access and workers' bungalows. Today, Baron Empain is perhaps best known by modern visitors to Egypt for the building of a palace in the Avenue des Palais Heliopolis, Egypt. Inspired by Angkor Wat in Cambodia and the Hindu temples of Orissa,, the Baron Empain palace was designed by French architectAlexandre Marcel and decorated by Georges-Louis Claude, with construction being completed in 1911. In 1905, Empain assisted the Belgian government in the purchase of an Old Kingdommastaba for the royal museum in Brussels, of which he was a benefactor. In 1907 he received the title of Baron, and also suggested to Belgian Egyptologist Jean Capart that he excavate at Heliopolis, where his building constructions were underway. He also made it possible for Capart to acquire some fine ancient artefacts for the Brussels Museum.
Military Career
During World War I, he was given the rank of general and directed armaments production at Paris and Le Havre for the Belgian army. He died in Woluwe, Belgium, and was buried in the Our Lady of Heliopolis Basilica. In Egypt. He was succeeded as baron by his son, Jean Empain, who married American burlesque performer Rozell Rowland. They entertained frequently at the Heliopolis. Jean, 2nd Baron Empain, was succeeded by their son, Édouard-Jean Empain.
