Museum of Industry

The Museum of Industry, Work and Textiles is a museum in Ghent in Belgium. Ghent was at the centre of the Flanders textile region. The museum is an Anchor point on the European Route of Industrial Heritage.The first business recorded on this site was that of Pieter Van Huffel. The contract he won in 1819, allowed him to purchase a steam engine for his cotton mill. Around 1830 he built adjoining weaving sheds. Pierre Guequier and Ferdinand Dierman took over the company in 1845 and started building, but in 1854 Guequier bought out his partner. By 1864 he had formed a new company with his son-in-law Adolphe Desmet and the mills became known as the 'Desmet-Guequier & Compagnie' factory.Even so, the Desmet-Guequier factory was one of the smaller mills in Ghent: at the beginning of 1862 it had 99 employees. The profitability of a cotton mill is determined by its size.

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