Inventor Gustaf de Laval

Gustaf de Laval was of French decent, the first de Laval's in Sweden arrived in the 1600's. He was born 9 May 1845 in Dalecarlia (Dalarna) as the son of Jacques de Laval, an officer and a land survayor. He took an interest to technology early in life and started building steamengines. His studies at the Institute of Technology in Stockholm went well but when he finished the economy was bad in Sweden and he had a hard time finding a job where he could work with what he had studied. He therefor continued to study at the univeristy of Uppsala and got a doctor's degree in chemistry.

After working with making glass bottles and an engineer he came up with the two inventions that would really start off his career. The first one was the seperator that seperates the cream from the milk and the second one was a steam turbine. Charles Parson had also constructed a steam turbine but de Laval's was much more efficient and it quickly became a big hit.

When Laval died in 1913, of cancer, he had gotten 92 patents and started 37 companies but was poor as a church mouse. He had a head for inventions but not for business.

Ad in Country Gentleman Magazine March 9, 1918

Source: http://www.tekniskamuseet.se/1/1915.html


Picture source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/dok1/12978243584/ by Don O'Brien
Creative Commons: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/