Eugène Jules Houdry (Domont, France, April 18, 1892 – Upper Darby Township, Pennsylvania, July 18, 1962) was a mechanical engineer who graduated from École Nationale Supérieure d'Arts et Métiers in 1911.
Houdry served as a lieutenant in a tank company in the French Army during World War One, receiving the French Legion of Honour.
He helped innovate catalytic cracking of petroleum feed stocks, for which he
received the Perkin Medal among others.
Eugene Jules Houdry was born on April 18, 1892, at Domont, France near Paris. His parents were Jules Houdry and Émilie Thias Jule Lemaire. His father owned a successful business that manufactured structural steel.
Houdry studied mechanical engineering at the École des arts et métiers in the Paris suburb of Chalons-sur-Marne.
He graduated first in his class in 1911, earning a gold medal from the French government as the highest-ranking scholar in his class.
He also captained his school's soccer team, winning the national championship of France in 1910.
After graduation, Houdry joined his father's steel-making business as an engineer.
During World War I, Houdry served in the French army, first as a lieutenant in the field artillery. He later transferred to the army's new tank corps and took part in the first French battle to use tanks, part of the Nivelle Offensive which began on April 16, 1917.
Houdry was seriously wounded in the Juvincourt sector during the Second Battle of the Aisne. Most of the French tanks used in this offensive were rendered inoperable and very few reached their objective.
Houdry was injured while trying to organize repairs to the damaged tanks under heavy fire. He was later awarded the Croix de Guerre and was made a Chevalier of the Legion of Honor.
After the war, Houdry returned to his father's company, Houdry et Fils. His hobby was road racing, and he drove a Bugatti racing car.
Through the family steel company, he met automobile and parts manufacturers, and engineers who were trying to improve engine performance. This sparked Houdry's interest in high-performance fuels.
Recognizing that the key to better performance of automobiles and airplanes was the improvement of fuels, he became interested in the catalytic processes used to convert coal and lignite to gasoline. In 1922, Houdry visited the United States, where he saw the Indianapolis 500, and toured a Ford Motor plant in Detroit, Michigan.
On July 3, 1922, Eugene Houdry married Geneviève Marie Quilleret.
The couple were to have two sons,
Following the war, there was an increasing demand for motor fuel. It was feared that petroleum stocks, which were being processed using thermal cracking, would not meet the demand. Scientists sought new ways to produce liquid fuels from bitumen, coal, and lignite. In Italy, a French pharmacist named E. A. Prudhomme was the principal scientist of a group experimenting with promising techniques for water-gas synthesis.