Jan Heydatel [Poles in Liepājā]

Jan Heydatel (1800–1871), was a civil engineer and Major General. He was a son of Maria née Korbacka and Józef Heydatel, a French emigrant, doctor, founder of one of the first schools for midwives at the Polish land. Jan Heydatel finished secondary school in Białystok (1819), and then he graduated from the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics of Vilnius University (1824) and the Institute of Communication Engineers in St. Petersburg (1829). He was a member of the secret Filaret Association and a friend of Adam Mickiewicz. He designed and rebuilt the Royal Canal (now the Dnieper-Bug Canal); he worked on the expansion of many ports, including Astrakhan, Riga, Windau (now Ventspils in Latvia) and Pernau (now Pärnu in Estonia). He designed the expansion of the port of Liepājā, and then, in the years 1861–1868, he was in charge of the construction works, as a result of which Liepājā became one of the main ports in the Baltic Sea.