19th-century French inventors

Gustave Pierre Trouvé (2 January 1839 – 27 July 1902) was a French electrical engineer and inventor in the 19th century. A polymath, he was highly respected for his innovative skill in miniaturization.

Pierre-Auguste Sarrus (March 14 or 15, 1813 – May 3, 1876) was a French musician and inventor.

Benoît Rouquayrol (1826–1875) was a French inventor. Along with Auguste Denayrouze, Rouquayrol invented a diving suit and breathing apparatus.

Charles-Joseph Pigeon (29 March 1838 – 18 March 1915) was born in Le Mesnil-Lieubray in Normandy in France.
He started as a salesman in Le Bon Marché in Paris, where he became a close friend of Ernest Cognacq, subsequently the founder of the Samaritaine department store.
Pigeon became a dealer in cycle lamps and other lamps. His invention and manufacture of the Pigeon lamp, a non-exploding gasoline lamp, in 1884 (exhibited at the Exposition universelle de 1900), made him famous and wealthy.

After his death he remains noted for his family grave in Montparnasse Cemetery in Paris, which he commissioned in 1905 to hold up to 18 family members. The main feature is a life-sized bronze sculpture of Pigeon (notebook and pencil in hand) and his wife lying on a bed, overlooked by an angel, which had been illuminated by a lamp for many years by his custodians.

Claude Félix Abel Niépce de Saint-Victor (26 July 1805, Saint-Cyr, Saône-et-Loire – 7 April 1870, Paris) was a French photographic inventor. Claude was an army lieutenant and the cousin of Nicéphore Niépce. He first experimented in 1847 with negatives made with albumen on glass, a method subsequently used by Frederick Langenheim for his and his brother’s lantern slides. At his laboratory near Paris, Saint-Victor worked on the fixation of natural photographic colour as well as the perfection of his cousin's heliographing process for photomechanical printing. His method of photomechanical printing, called heliogravure, was published in 1856 in Traité pratique de gravure héliographique. In the 1850s, he also published frequently in La Lumière.

Augustin Mouchot (; French: [muʃo]; 7 April 1825 – 4 October 1912) was a 19th-century French inventor of the earliest solar-powered engine, converting solar energy into mechanical steam power.

Alphonse Loubat (15 June 1799 – 10 September 1866) was a French inventor who developed improvements in tram and rail equipment, and helped develop tram lines in New York City and Paris.
Loubat was born in Sainte-Livrade-sur-Lot. He went to New York City in 1827 where he helped develop that city's first tramway in 1832. He returned to France and in 1852 developed the grooved rail, which greatly facilitated street railways and tramlines. Besides he planted wine in Brooklin and wrote on wine.He died in Ville-d'Avray. Joseph Florimond Loubat was his son.

Joseph-Louis Lambot (born 22 May 1814 in Montfort sur Argens; died 2 August 1887 in Brignoles), is the inventor of ferro-cement, which led to the development of what is now known as reinforced concrete. He studied in Paris, where his uncle Baron Lambot was aide-de-camp to the Duke of Bourbon.
In 1841 he moved to his family's estate of Chateau Miraval in the Department of the Var (Southern France), where he applied himself to agriculture. It is around that time that he started constructing water tanks and troughs using cement mortar (masonry) and iron reinforcement most likely in the form of iron rods, chicken wire (which was invented in Britain in 1844 and used for shipping crates) and possibly barrel bands that were easily available with the arrival of the machine age. In 1848 he constructed his first boat using the same system, which he tested on ponds on the estate. This boat was patented on 30 January 1855 and presented at the 1855 World's Fair in Paris (Exposition Universelle - 1855). Unfortunately, his patents went no further and were superseded by patents of Joseph Monier. The original prototype is preserved at the Museum of Brignoles. Robert Courland describes in his book Concrete Planet that Lambot's boat sank and was preserved in anaerobic mud at the bottom of the lake. The boat was recovered more than a hundred years later.
His birthplace in Montfort-sur-Argens is now "Maison Lambot" BnB.

Pierre Lallement (French: [lalmɑ̃]; October 25, 1843 – August 29, 1891) is considered by some to be the inventor of the pedal bicycle.

Henri Joly (1866–1945) was a French inventor and businessman. He developed early versions of motion picture film, cameras, and projectors.