Biography

 

He entered École polytechnique in 1862 and then École des Ponts et Chaussées.After completing his studies, he was sent on assignment in the Orient then on the Suez Canal.He then took part in completing construction on the Sarre coal canal linking Gondrexange to Sarreguemines.In 1870, he was commander of engineering at Verdun, where he built the barracks.

From 1872 to 1879, he was appointed head of operations on the Eastern Railways and on the Marne to Rhine Canal.Appointed head of the ministerial office and personnel director in 1880 by Henry Varroy, a Ponts engineer who had become Minister of Public Works, he shortly afterwards became director of roads, navigation and mines, then of railways in 1882. Appointed Councillor of State in the same year, from 1886 he headed the public works, agriculture, trade and industry section of the Council of State until 1912. A great public servant, Navy Minister in 1908, Vice-President of the Council of State in 1912, chairman of numerous technical committees, such as the committee charged with studying the organisation of the State railway network after the takeover of the Western network, or the flooding in 1910, Alfred Picard is also known for his numerous writings.His four volume historical study on The French Railways (1887) is an unrivalled mine of important historical and administrative information.His encyclopaedic knowledge won him the role of general rapporteur for the 1889 Exhibition, and he was author of the ten-volume General Report then General Commissioner of the 1900 Exhibition, on which he wrote a monumental technological retrospective, the six-volume Summary of a Century.The French Academy of Sciences appointed him a free member from 1902. He finally succumbed to excessive stress from overwork.

 

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