Kai, Jean Francois

Born in a poor family. At the age of 9 he was expelled from school, because he could not pay for classes.

In 1818 he left home with six francs in his pocket and wandered around the country for five years, until in 1824 he reached Paris and entered the factory as a tinsmith. Four years later he headed one of the workshops. In 1830 he became the director of the factory, in 1836 he was invited to become a companion to the owner of the factory. In 1838, he established his own trading house in Brussels - by 1850 its capital was 7,000,000 francs.

Kai's business included both agricultural and industrial parts. Engaged in the cultivation of grapes and sugar beets and the subsequent production of wine and sugar , Kai personally engaged in the design and improvement of apparatus and machines used in the food industry and winemaking. The distillation apparatus of the Kai system was used at the beginning of the 20th century . By the end of the 1860s, Kai was apparently the largest sugar producer in Europe.

At the same time, Kai had interests in heavy industry (the manufacture of metal structures) and, above all, in steam locomotive building: starting in 1844, he produced under the British license the most popular Crampton brand locomotives by French railways. During the Franco-Prussian War ( 1870 - 1871 ), the production of Kai was transferred to military rails and provided the French army with guns, gunboats , etc. 300 Kaya mills worked day and night to stockpile the besieged Paris .

• Kai, Jean-Francois // Encyclopedic Dictionary of Brockhaus and Efron : 86 volumes (82 volumes and 4 additional). - SPb. , 1890-1907.