Concept
The Tréfileries et Laminoirs du Havre (TLH: Le Havre Wire-Drawing and Rolling Mills) was an enterprise based in Le Havre, France, that manufactured copper wire, other copper products and products of other metals including bronze and aluminum. It was founded to serve the rapidly growing market for electrical power transmission and for telegraph and telephone cables. It grew into a massive industrial empire with factories in many French cities and abroad. In 1962 it merged with the Compagnie française des métaux and became Tréfimétaux. In 1967 Tréfimétaux was acquired by Pechiney. The various plants were closed or sold over the years. The company was created by Lazare Weiller (1858–1928), who was born in the small town of Sélestat in Alsace on 20 July 1858. He studied in Angoulême and Paris, and then in Trinity College, Oxford. He returned to Angoulême to work in his cousin's factory, which produced metal sheets for the paper industry. He became interested in the problem of drawing copper wires, for which there was growing demand, adapted the process of rolling hot steel rods into wire so the method could be used with copper and launched his own company in Angoulême to make copper wire in this way. He developed a bronze alloy that combined the conductivity of copper with the strength to remain stretched between poles apart, of great value to telegraph and telephone companies, and obtained several patents in France and other countries. In 1880 at the age of 22 Weiller created what would become the Tréfileries et Laminoirs du Havre. Weiller joined the board of the Société des téléphones, which was both a customer and an investor in his company. Weiller remained interested in research and explored transmission of images over electrical wires, colour photography and flying. He was elected a deputy in 1914, and held office through World War I, then was a senator from 1920 until his death in 1928. Weiller created the Société Lazare Weiller in 1883, with the first factory in Angoulême, and was the main owner of the enterprise.
