Henryk Łubieński

He was born amid profound political turbulence in his nation, while his mother had sought sanctuary with her young family in the Czech capital, and his father was engrossed in affairs of state in Poland. He was the seventh of ten children and fifth of seven sons of two well connected Polish nobles, Tekla Teresa Łubieńska, a writer and dramatist and Felix Łubieński, a jurist and future minister of justice in the Duchy of Warsaw, soon (1796) to be granted the hereditary title of count by Frederick Wilhelm III of Prussia.

All the Łubieński's siblings survived into adulthood. They were, brothers: Franciszek, Tomasz Łubieński, Piotr, Tadeusz, Jan, Józef and sisters: Maria Skarżyńska, Paulina Morawska and Róża Sobańska, known as "The Siberian rose" for her charitable work and wife of a Siberian exile and mother of the philanthropist, Feliks Sobański.

After home tutoring, Henryk entered the Warsaw law school founded by his father in 1808. Having completed his studies there, he continued law studies in Paris. He returned to Poland aged 25 and married Irena Potocka. He bought his eldest brother's estate at Kazimierza Wielka and in 1818 he settled there with his wife for a time. There he planned his first sugar processing plant, a project brought to fruition by one of his nephews, Kazimierz. In 1820 he was appointed counsel to his voivodeship and completed a higher law degree at Warsaw University in 1826.

His property portfolio was extensive and scattered: he owned estates in Częstocice, Wiskitki, Guzów, Kazimierza Wielka, Ostrowiec Świętokrzyski, Firlej Lublin Voivodeship and Lubartów.

He collaborated in a great range of industrial and business start-ups. He initiated coal mining at Huta Bankowa in Dąbrowa Górnicza with a capital loan from the Bank Polski. Incidentally, the bronze cast memorial to him with his bust, unveiled in 1839, was the first such casting made in Poland from a coal fired Smelting at Huta Bankowa.

He founded the Sugar factory at Guzów in 1829 and another sugar plant at Częstocice in 1839.[3] While at Lubartów he started a Ceramics factory to produce Fayence china, the beginning of that particular industry in the area. His own firm lasted ten years from 1840 to 1850. In the same voivodeship at Firlej, he opened the first Ironworks near the mineral quarry at the village of Serock. Thus he was able to initiate the first local metal production line for agricultural machinery and implements, including scythes. He also opened factories at Żyrardów, Starachowice and in Ostrowiec Świętokrzyski.

In 1829, he became a director of Bank Polski, and then between 1832 and 1842, he rose to be its vice president. In 1830, with his older brother, Tomasz he opened a department store, Bracia Łubieńscy i Spółka – "Łubieński Brothers and Partners". The store developed fortuitously just as the November Uprising was in preparation and they were able to import armaments and military equipment from the United Kingdom. At the same time, Henryk Ł. opened a factory to make gunpowder and Saltpeter, and tailoring workshops and a shoe factory to produce military boots.[4]

Having organised mining and metalwork, in 1835 Łubieński now turned his attention to building a railway joining Warsaw with Zaglebie Dabrowskie, in outline essentially what was to become the Warsaw-Vienna railway line.

In 1842, he and Józef Lubowidzki president of Bank Polski were charged with misappropriating public funds for personal use.[5] They denied and resisted these accusations which brought scandal and shame upon them and their illustrious families. The court case lasted six years. Finally, in 1848, the year the Łubieński clan patriarch, Felix Walezjusz, died in his 90th year, Henryk Łubieński was convicted and sentenced to a year in prison, but after interventions it was commuted to exile in Kursk for five years. His brother, Tomasz, raised the funds to pay off the creditors and buy his conditional release and was able to bring him back home.[6] He returned to Poland in 1853 but he played no further significant role in the economic development of his country. Henryk died, like his father, aged 90, and was buried in Wiskitki.

He married Irena Potocka with whom he had two daughters who included Maria Magdalena Łubieńska,[7] and eight sons, who included Edward, Tomasz Wentworth, Konstanty Ireneusz (later a bishop who died in Siberian exile), Julian, and Jan Nepomucen.

That Łubieński was an anglophile, possibly as a result of his British business contacts and a presumed visit to Wentworth Woodhouse, is attested by the fact that he gave his second son, born in 1821, the English name "Wentworth". This connection endured through the generations of his line as, later in the 19th century, two family descendants settled in England and married into English families, the de la Barre Bodenhams and the Grimshaws. Among his grandsons was the British-educated, Redemptorist missionary, Servant of God Bernard Łubieński (1846–1933), currently undergoing a Beatification trial at the Vatican.

For his role in the November Uprising, he was awarded:

• Virtuti Militari (1831), Class V Silver Cross
• Order of Saint Stanislaus (1831)
• Order of Saint Anna (1831)

• Polski Słownik Biograficzny Vol. XVIII (1973)
• Melchior Wańkowicz, Sztafeta (1939)

• List of Polish people
• Tomasz Lubienski

• Żuchlewska, Teresa (2009). "Henryk Łubieński (1793–1883) i jego działalność gospodarczo-społeczna". Rocznik Żyrardowski, 7, p. 527-570 / Muzeum Historii Polski. A critical assessment of Henryk Łubieński's role in industry.
• Marek Jerzy Minakowski – Genealogia Potomków Sejmu Wielkiego – genealogy service