page_title: Lazare Weiller
section_title: Industry
hierarchical_section_title: Lazare Weiller / Industry
caption_attribution_description: English: Renault Type AG 9 CV 1910
context_page_description: Lazare Weiller was a French engineer, industrialist and politician. He was born in Alsace and received a technical education in England and in his cousin's copper factory in Angoulême. He was very interested in the physical sciences, particularly the use of electricity to transmit sound and images. He proposed a system for scanning, transmitting and displaying images that was the basis for experiments by various television pioneers. He sponsored early aviation experiments by the Wright brothers. He founded several companies including a telephone wire manufacturer, a taximeter manufacturer, the first Parisian cab company to use automobiles, an aircraft company and a wireless telegraphy company.
  He was a deputy during World War I and then a senator until his death.
context_section_description: While working at his cousin's copper fabric factory Weiller became interested in the problem of drawing copper wires, for which there was growing demand.
  He adapted the process of rolling hot steel rods to making copper wire.
  Weiller created the Société Lazare Weiller in 1883, with its first factory in Angoulême, and was the main owner of the enterprise.
  He developed a bronze alloy that combined the conductivity of copper with the strength to remain stretched between poles 50 metres (160 ft) apart, of great value to telegraph and telephone companies, and obtained several patents in France and other countries.
  Weiller collaborated with Jules Lair of the Institut de France in manufacturing and distributing telephones in France.
  Weiller joined the board of the Société des téléphones, which was both a customer and an investor in his company.
  Weiller acquired land along the Paris–Le Havre railway and the new Canal de Tancarville in 1895, and in 1896 built a larger factory at Graville in the Le Havre region.
  In 1898 the Le Havre factory included forges, foundries, rolling mills and wireworks and processed copper, steel, aluminum, brass, bronze and nickel. 
  The bulk of the output was for electrical equipment and construction of telephone and telegraph lines.
  In 1901 the company became the Tréfileries et Laminoirs du Havre (TLH).
  Weiller became associated with Swiss banks, and from 1907 started to acquire facilities and companies to build a huge industrial complex.
  TLH grew through acquisitions and mergers to gain a dominant position in the industry.
  In 1913 TLH's assets were 57,800,000 francs, making it the 22nd largest industrial company in France, and the third largest manufacturer of electrical equipment after the Compagnie Francaise Thomson-Houston and Compagnie Générale d'Electricité.
  Weiller manufactured "taximeters" to measure mileage and founded the first automobile cab company in Paris.
  He founded the taximeter company in 1903 and the Société des fiacres automobiles (Automobile Cab Company) in 1905 in partnership with banks and car manufacturers.
  In 1905 the company ordered 250 8-horsepower 2-cylinder type AG cars from Renault, later called the "Taxis de la Marne".
  Renault started serial production to fill the order.
  The cars were fitted with taximeters.
  As of 1911 the Compagnie des Fiacres Automobiles had more than 3,000 of the small red Renault automobiles.
  A new town was built in Levallois-Perret where seven or eight thousand employees and workers prepared or drove the automobiles de place.
  In 1908 Weiller was president of the TLH, the Chantiers de Dunkerque, the Chantiers de Normandie and the Société métallurgique bordelaise.
  He was a board member of the Entrepôts du Havre, the Docks de Rouen and the Compagnie des Voitures de Place in Paris. 
  He worked with the Banque française de l'Afrique du Sud and the Maison de Banque Bauer et Marchal. 
  The Weiller family also had interests in German Alsace.
  In 1908 Weiller created a prize of $10,000 for the first person to achieve flight in France.
  By June 1908 the recent flights of Henri Farman and Léon Delagrange had reduced Weiller's confidence in the Wrights. 
  Wilbur Wright wrote that he was "about scared out".
  By the end of the year these doubts had vanished as the Wright brothers made repeated demonstrations of their machines.
  Weiller formed a syndicate, the Compagnie Générale de Navigation Aérienne (CGNA: General Air Navigation Company), to market aircraft using the Wright design.Henri Deutsch de la Meurthe was his partner in the venture.
  They did not build the machines, but contracted with the airship firm Société Astra and the Ateliers et Chantiers de France of Dunkirk for the airframes and with Bariquand et Marre for the engines.
  Weiller had interests in both the Chantiers de Dunkerque and Barriquand et Marre.
  The CGNA was not particularly profitable.
  It claimed to have received 50 orders for airplanes, but probably did not deliver more than 25.
  The first flight was made on 3 February 1909.
  In September 2012 Weiller created the Compagnie universelle de télégraphie et
caption: Renault Type AG-9 Taxi 1910
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