One of the most prominent industrialists of his time was John Hughes, the founder of Donetsk. Thanks to him, this one of the largest industrial cities of Ukraine appeared. What else was remarkable about the biography of John Hughes? Let's find out in more detail who he is and what he did.
Youth
First of all, let's find out in which year John Hughes was born, where and in whose family. The future large industrialist was born in 1814 in the town of Merthyr Tyddville, in Wales. He came from a Welsh family of engineer Hughes (in modern pronunciation, Hughes), who ran a local metallurgical plant.
In his early youth, John James Hughes worked at his father's enterprise, but by the age of 28 he was able to accumulate a certain amount of capital and acquired his own shipyard.
UK activities
In 1850, John Hughes acquired another company - a foundry in Newport. However, this did not prevent him from simultaneously improving himself, working as an engineer at the Millvolsky Iron-Rolling Plant, where he moved to in the late 1950s. Already in 1860, John Hughes became the director of this enterprise.
One of his achievements at that time was the creation of a gun carriage for heavy guns, which he designed in 1864. This mechanism has attracted the attention of many European countries, where orders fell. In addition, John Hughes was developing armor for ships.
The name of John Hughes has become one of the most famous in British metallurgy and shipbuilding.
Offers from Russia
The development of John Hughes interested the Admiralty of the Russian Empire, which planned to use armor to strengthen the fort "Constantine" in Kronstadt.
During negotiations on the supply of armor, Hughes made close acquaintances with Russian officials, among whom were Colonel Ottomar Gern and General Eduard Totleben. They proposed to a British industrialist to implement a project in the south of the Russian Empire to build an iron rail factory, which Prince Kochubey had previously taken on. Hughes agreed.
Reasons for accepting the offer
The main reason that prompted John Hughes to concentrate his main activity on the Russian Empire was the industrial crisis that erupted in Britain after the catastrophic fall of the London Stock Exchange in 1866. This has led to a significant increase in unemployment in the country and an outflow of investment. At this time, the volume of orders from buyers fell significantly.
At that time, Russia was a state whose economy was developing by leaps and bounds, trying to reduce the backlog from Western countries. Therefore, it was a rather attractive field of activity for a foreign industrialist. He intended to attract labor from Great Britain in projects implemented in Russia, for which demand in his native country fell sharply.
In addition, Russian officials made Yuzu a number of rather advantageous proposals, which in this situation seemed even more attractive.
Start of activity in Russia
So, John Hughes closely engaged in the Russian project, which promised a big profit.
In 1868, he went to Russia, leaving his wife at home, as she completely refused to move.
First of all, Hughes acquired the right to mine coal on lands that belonged to Prince Paul Liven. In the same year, a British industrialist bought a concession for activities in the metallurgical industry in Yekaterinburg province from Prince Sergei Kochubey, which was facilitated by the Grand Duke Konstantin, who was the brother of Emperor Alexander. The deal was officially registered in April of that year.
Thus, John Hughes set the stage for the development of large-scale metallurgical production and the coal mining industry.
Novorossiysk Society
But to start production, considerable financial investments were required. John Hughes decided to attract them by creating a joint stock company. With his help, he wanted to channel British capital to develop industry in the south of the Russian Empire. The organization became known as the “Novorossiysk Society”, and specialized in attracting investments in metallurgical, coal and rail production. Registration of the company took place in 1869 in London.
The main shareholder of the company was a member of the British Parliament, Daniel Gooch, and the total number of participants reached nineteen people. Among them were Russians, in particular, the above-mentioned Sergei Kochubey and Pavel Liven.
The foundation of Donetsk
Now let's find out in which year John Hughes founded Donetsk. There is no exact dating of this event, but it is considered to be the year of foundation 1869, when the Novorossiysk Society near the village of Aleksandrovka began to build a metallurgical plant. At the same time, a working settlement arose, which in honor of John Hughes was called Yuzovka, or Yuzovo. From this settlement the modern city of Donetsk grew.
Initially, Yuzovka had the status of a Posad with simplified city management, and geographically belonged to the Bakhmut district of the Yekaterinoslav province. In 1870, it numbered 164 inhabitants.
Then, in 1869, another village arose - Smolyanka. Near it were built a forge and two mines belonging to Yuzu.
Production development
Although it was originally planned to launch the plant in 1870, the construction of the first blast furnace was completed only in April 1871. By 1872, the construction of the plant was completely completed. He counted eight coke ovens. At the very beginning of 1872, iron smelting began.
Workers at the plant were not only subjects of the Russian emperor, but also persons recruited in the UK, in which, due to the crisis, a lot of free workers appeared. A particularly large influx of labor came from native Wuz. Most British workers lived in the Yuzovka quarter, which was called the English colony.
If at first production was developing quite hard, then over time it reached a significant scale. The Hughes factory became one of the largest metallurgical enterprises in the Russian Empire.
In 1880, a factory for the production of refractory bricks was launched. Nine years later, an iron foundry and machine-building enterprise also began to function. True, this was already the work of not Hughes, but other industrialists - Gennefeld and Boss. But nevertheless, it is John Hughes who is the person thanks to whom industry began to develop in leaps and bounds.
To ensure transport accessibility of the developing region, the Konstantinovskaya railway was launched in 1872.
Hughes House
Initially, John Hughes lived on an estate bought from the landowner Smolyaninova, where the village of Smolyanka appeared. The house where he lived was a structure similar to the Ukrainian hut. Its walls were of adobe, and the roof of straw. However, to this day this structure has not been preserved.
Significant historical and architectural value is another home of John Hughes. It was built in Yuzovka specifically for the Welsh industrialist. The start of construction was timed to the second half of 1873. Already in the middle of next year the house was built. It was a one-story red brick building and consisted of eight rooms. The roof was covered with sheets of iron. In addition, many household-type buildings adjoined the house, from the basement to the kennel. On the estate there was a garden. Also in the house were such attributes of the new time as plumbing and electricity.
Hughes’s house was a kilometer and a half from his factory.
The wife of John Hughes moved from England to Yuzovka much later than her husband, already when the mansion was built. She was not satisfied with his appearance, in particular, the fact that the house was one-story. Therefore, it was decided to rebuild it into two floors.
But not a single project of Russian architects could satisfy the taste of the Yuzov family, therefore, a specialist was hired in the UK. The responsibility with which they approached the design is evidenced by the fact that it lasted for several years. Moreover, in 1880, work on the project was interrupted due to a number of force majeure circumstances, namely due to the death of his son and wife John Hughes. Work resumed only three years after their suspension. As a result, the project was a building plan in the Renaissance style.
The construction itself began in 1887 and ended four years later, that is, after the death of John Hughes. Neither he nor his wife survived until the house was finally built. However, other members of the family moved into the mansion in the autumn of 1891. They lived in the house until 1903, after which they left these places permanently.
Currently, the building, which was once the home of Yuzov, is one of the attractions that adorn the city of Donetsk, although it is in a dilapidated condition. It is located at ul. Clinical, 15. The modern view of the building can be seen in the photo above.
Death
As mentioned above, John Hughes (1814-1889) died before the completion of his new home. This happened in June 1889, when Hug was in the capital of the Russian Empire, St. Petersburg. Death overtook him at the age of seventy-five at the Angleterre Hotel.
John Hughes is buried in his homeland, in the UK, at the West Norwood cemetery in London.
A family
Now take a brief look at other members of the Yuzov family.
John Hughes was married to Elizabeth Lewis. She did not dare to move from her native Britain to the south of the Russian Empire for a long time. But in the end she followed her husband and sons. She died nine years before the death of John Hughes, in November 1880.
The Yuzov family had seven children: five sons and two daughters. The eldest daughter, Sarah Anna Hughes, married Lemon, was born in 1846, and died in 1929 in London. The other daughter, Margaret, died young in Yuzovka. In 1948, her grave was opened and looted.
The eldest son of the Yuz family was John James. He was born in 1848, and died in 1917. It was John James after the death of his father in 1889 that he became the head of the Yuz family.
The second son, Arthur Hughes, was born in 1852, and died, like his brother, in 1917. He was married to Augusta James, in a marriage with which four daughters were born.
Ivor Edward, born in 1855, was the third son of John Hughes. He died in 1917 in London.
Another child in the house of Yuzov was Albert Evelyn (born 1857), who died in 1907 in London. His daughter was Kira Hughes, who was married first to the Russian Sergei Bursak, and then the Englishman Ambemarl Blackwood. From both marriages, she had children.
The youngest children in the Yuz House were David and Aries Tudor.
In addition, John Hughes had an illegitimate son, Ivan, born in 1870, and died in 1910. He had nine children.
The hobby of John Hughes
The main hobby of John Hughes, in addition to engaging in engineering, was collecting. He spent a significant part of his fortune on the acquisition of various valuable relics. He constantly maintained contact with antique shops.
Towards the end of his life, John Hughes put together a rather impressive collection of antiquities.
John Hughes Legacy
It is hard to overestimate the legacy that John Hughes left behind. He was the first to put the metallurgical industry on industrial rails in the Donetsk region, and made a significant contribution to the development of coal mining and machine building. But, most of all, he is known by our contemporary, as the founder of the city of Donetsk.
At the same time, it is necessary to state the fact that we know too little about the youth of John Hughes, his personal life, motivation in making important decisions.
The memory of John Hughes
Even during the life of the British industrialist, the workers' village was named after Hughes, which in the future became the center of the entire Donetsk region. By 1884, the population of this city totaled almost 5.5 thousand people, by 1897 - 29 thousand people, and by 1918 67,000 people already lived in Yuzovka.
But after the October Revolution, government circles tried by all means to obscure the role of Hughes in the development of the region, since, in their opinion, the foreign capitalist is not worthy of the people's memory. In 1924, a decision was made to rename the city of Yuzovka to Stalin. In 1961, the city acquired its current name - Donetsk.
After the fall of the communist regime, a rethinking of the past became possible. The British industrialist was finally able to take the place in domestic history, which he deserves. In September 2001, a monument to John Hughes was unveiled in the Voroshilovsky district of Donetsk. The author of this creation is the Ukrainian sculptor Alexander Skorykh.