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François Coulomb the Younger

French naval engineer

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionNov 3, 2025
Entity authorityQ5493225 ↗
Source-derived summary

François Coulomb the Younger (La Ciotat, Province of Provence 1691 - Toulon, July 1751) was a French naval architect (ingénieur-constructeur), the son of François Coulomb the Elder. During his career, he designed 18 ships for the French Navy, and oversaw the construction of most of them.

Biography

Born to a family of naval engineers of renown, the son of François Coulomb the Elder, François Coulomb was appointed master-constructor in 1727.

His first designs were for the 8-gun bomb vessels Tempête (launched 1726) and Foudroyante (1728). In 1727, he designed the frigate Zéphyr (1728), a light (demi-batterie) frigate of 28 guns. In 1730, he designed the 50-gun Diamant.

In 1733, he completed the design of the 62-gun Borée. In 1737, he began the 74-gun Terrible (1739). Both ships were longer than their predecessors, each allowing an extra pair of guns on their lower decks.

The year 1740 saw the design and commencement of the 80-gun Tonnant (launched 1743).

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “François Coulomb the Younger” is french naval engineer. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through François, Coulomb and Younger, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA productive starting point for separating a subject’s documented career from later reputation and commemoration. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1691, 1751, 1727, 1726—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1691-01-01. For this dossier, François, Coulomb and Younger is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “french naval engineer” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Nov 3, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q5493225. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1691, 1751, 1727 and 1726.

Critical limits

Public reputation and documentary evidence do not always develop together; absence from a summary is not evidence of historical absence. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

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  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
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Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “François Coulomb the Younger”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow François Coulomb the Younger primary sources, François Coulomb the Younger archive and François research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “François Coulomb the Younger”?
  2. How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
  3. Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “François Coulomb the Younger” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.