Agustín de Betancourt

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Agustín de Betancourt and Molina (Puerto de la Cruz (Tenerife, Spain), 1758 - Saint Petersburg Russia, 1825) was one of the most prestigious engineers of Europe.

He was son of Agustín de Betancourt and Castro, participant regular in the Social gathering of Nava and charter member of economic Society of Laguna. Indeed in just created Society it presented/displayed in 1778 its first design, a epicilíndrica machine to entorchar silk, made in collaboration with its brothers Jose de Betancourt and Castro and Maria de Betancourt and Molina, of whom it seems had arisen the idea. Maria de Betancourt would also present/display to the Economic Society of the Lagoon a “Memory of on the form to obtain the crimson color”, more likely the first scientific memory signed by a woman in Canary.

In 1778] he moved to Madrid to study in the Real Studies of San Isidro and, like Clavijo and Fajardo, no longer returned to the islands. His first orders for Corona, in 1783, are the inspection of Imperial Channel of Aragón and the study of the mines of Almadén, on whose state it wrote up three detailed memories; in this same year and before the Real Court it elevated, for the first time in Spain, Air balloon.

In 1784 he travelled to Paris to the school of Bridges and Ways. As of 1785 it carried out numerous technical investigations (“Memory on the purification of the coal stone”, etc.) and beginning to make studies on hydraulics and mechanics and to design and to acquire machines by order of Floridablanca with views to the future creation in Madrid of a Cabinet of Machines.

In the autumn of 1788 [England made its first trip to [[]], where he remained two months observing machines, to half of way between the scientific research and the industrial espionage. Among other places, it visited the company of Boulton and James Watt, who in 1782 had patented machine of double effect, but was not able to see the new perfected machine in which they were working. Nevertheless, in London observed a machine of double effect working in a flour factory and a new model of mechanical loom (probably the one of Cartwright).

On his return to Paris, in 1789 a “Memory wrote for the Academy of Sciences of Paris on a Steam engine of double effect” and at the same time, it designed a pump that settled in just constructed flour factory of the Perier brothers. Shortly after, it designed a model of mechanical loom. He himself year constructed a Aeolian machine to the future drain marshy lands, that the loom incorporated along with, to the collection of machines to Cabinet. Also the design or the acquisition of the instruments for the expedition was in charge of Malaspina.

In 1790 he presented to the Academy of Sciences of Paris the “Memory on the expansive force of the water steam” perhaps (it is not accidental that in those same Watt dates it wrote to Boulton advising to him to distrust of the foreign visitors).

The following year, 1791, its study wrote on the way to fuse and to drill iron tubes (the “Description of the Real establishment of Yndrid where the iron tubes are based and drill for French Navy Real”, in which it proposes diverse improvements to the used methods) and the “Memory on the mechanical dredge”, whose construction tried to carry out in Spain, although without result, and that finally constructed in Krondstadt in 1812. Before the revolutionary look that began to take the situation in France, it returned to Madrid with the collection of machines.

In 1792 [was inaugurated Real Cabinet of Machines, of which director was named, and public became the first Catalogue of models, planes and manuscripts of the Cabinet that included 270 machines, 358 planes and more than 100 memories with 92 graphs, all which had gathered or designed during their stay in Paris. 

In 1793 he traveled to England where he remained three years investigating on theories of the machines and where the design of a machine presented/displayed in 1795 to cut to grass in rivers and channels.

In 1796, before the rupture of relations between Spain and England as a result of the company/signature of Treated about San Ildefonso between France and Spain, traveled to Paris. There along with Breguet, presented/displayed to the Directory the prototype and the planes of optical telegraph (the “Memory on a new telegraph and some ideas on the telegraphic language”), in which came working from 1787, and began the controversy with Chappe about the advantages and disadvantages of the telegraph of Breguet and Betancourt, controversy that will not be solved until the definitive favorable report of the Academy of Sciences in 1796.

In 1797 [Perier patented along with a hydraulic press for industrial use and it incorporated it to the Cabinet of Machines (as in the case of the machine of double effect and the mechanical loom, this press were very similar to other invented by Bramah that Betancourt had seen in England). This same year returned to Spain, where Chief inspector of Ports and Ways was named.

In 1802 he obtained that [was created Official School of the Body of Engineers of Ways, of which was the first director and in 1803] began to write with Lanz the “Test on the composition of the machines”, that would be published in Paris in 1808 becoming a text book of great diffusion in all Europe.

In 1807, Betancourt was named correspondent of the Academy of Sciences of Paris (ironically, also J. Watt was named correspondent in that same session). Shortly after Spain left definitively, transferring to Paris where Academy presented/displayed to of Sciences his “Memory on new positioning system inner”, in which it described a piston sluice that it had invented in 1801, and invented with Breguet the metallic thermometer. At the end of 1807 traveled to Saint Petersburg invited by the Czar Alexander I of Russia and remained there during six months. After returning to Paris to present/display with Lanz the “Test”,] returned to Russia where it remained until its death to the service of Alexander I. Named marshal of the Russian army, it was assigned to the Advisory Council of the Department of Routes of Communication. Later it was named Inspector of the Institute of the Body of Engineers and, in 1819, Director of the Department of Routes of Communication. 

Throughout the 16 years of his stay in Russia he alternated the academic direction of the Institute of Engineers with numerous public works, like the bridge on Nevka, the modernization of the factory of arms of Tula or the factory of tubes of Kazan, dredges of Krondstadt, the scaffoldings for the Cathedral of San Isaac or the Column of Alexander I, the Betancourt channel of Saint Petersburg, the fair of Nizhni Nóvgorod, the paper money factory, the picadero of Moscow, navigation to steam in Volga, systems of water supply, railroads, etc. From 1822 began to have problems with the Czar and was replaced in the direction of the Institute, being relegated until its death in 1824.

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