Michał Łempicki

Michał Antoni Łempicki (1856-1930) was a mining engineer and entrepreneur. He was a Polish public and political figure, deputy of the State Duma of the Russian Empire for the Piotrków Governorate.

Life Youth and studies (1856-1890) Michał Łempicki was born on 14 September 1856 in Nowy Targ, Province of Prussia, Kingdom of Prussia (now in Pomeranian Voivodeship) His mother was Izabela, his father, Michał senior (1818-1895), was a nobleman from the province of Płock, then in the Congress Poland. In 1861, he was sentenced to exile to Samara. A year later, his wife Isabella was allowed to join him with their three children, Michał Antoni and his sisters. After a brief release to Saint Petersburg in 1871, the Samara exile resumed till 1886.

In 1874, the young Michał graduated from the Samara gymnasium and moved to Saint Petersburg. From 1874 to 1881, he studied at the St. Petersburg Mining Institute : he was graduated both from the Institute Natural Sciences department and from the Physics-Mathematics Faculty of Saint Petersburg Imperial University.

From 1881 onwards, he served in the Mining Department as the head of the Polish mining factories transferred from Warsaw. As such, Michał Łempicki carried out several works for the Russian Empire:

During the same period, Michał was an active member of various Polish industrial and scientific societies: hence in 1891 he entered the "Physiographic Commission of the Academy of Arts and Sciences", which founders originated from the Dąbrowa Basin. director of the Society of Industrialists of the Provinces of the Congress Poland (till 1912); director of the Warsaw Society for Supervision of Steam Boilers; deputy chairman of the Society for the Promotion of Handicrafts in the Congress Poland.

Michał Łempicki published a number of papers related to mining exploitation. He retired in 1912 with the administrative civilian rank of State councilor. Following the occupation of the Congress Poland by German troops, Michał actively cooperated with the ruling administration: as a consequence, on 15 December 1916, he was deprived of his deputy mandate by a decree of the State Duma, officially for non-attendance at meetings. Since 1917, he was also a member of the Military Commission established by the Provisional Council of State. He knew the city after previous stays at a friend's flat at 23 Chrobrego Street. a journal related to questions about mining and metallurgical industry. In Bydgoszcz, he pursued his writings (mainly political and social-oriented) for the "Dziennik Bydgoski".

Michał Łempicki bequeathed all his collections, about 800 volumes and the correspondence of his father Michał, to the city of Bydgoszcz. The donation comprised books, paintings, letters that his father once received from friends, autographs of Archbishop Zygmunt Feliński, poet Karol Baliński, historian Tadeusz Korzon, Mikhail Bakunin and writer Eliza Orzeszkowa. The second time, he was transferred in 1861 from Saint Petersburg to Samara.

Michał Łempicki had several siblings: Maria, born in 1854; Kasylda, born in 1848; Leokadia (1865–1913 in Kyiv), a painter. In 1885, she came to Warsaw to study privately in the atelier of Wojciech Gerson. She also studied at the Académie Julian in Paris. In 1897, she returned to Warsaw and started teaching drawing in private painting schools and then at the "Women's Artistic School". She took an active part in exhibitions, presenting her work in the "Society for the Encouragement of Fine Arts" in Warsaw and Krakow, as well as in galleries of Vilnius and Paris. Many of her works were unfortunately lost during the revolutionary turmoil or the Second World War.

Awards While living as a citizen of the Russian Empire, Michał Łempicki received two decorations: Order of Saint Anna, 3rd class; Order of Saint Stanislaus, 3rd class.