Gabriel Voisin

Gabriel Voisin was born on 5 February 1880 in Belleville-sur-Saône, France, and his brother Charles Voisin, two years younger than him, was his main childhood companion. When his father abandoned the family, his mother, Amélie, took her sons to Neuville-sur-Saône, where they settled near her father's factory.

Their grandfather, Charles Forestier, took charge of the boys' education with military rigor. The boys also went for expeditions along the river, went fishing, and built numerous contraptions. When his grandfather died, Gabriel was sent to school in Lyon and Paris, where he learned industrial design, a field Voisin claims to have been exceptionally gifted. He often returned home, and by the end of the century, the brothers had built, among other things, a rifle, a steamboat, and an automobile.