Gil Roger Duval

Gil Roger Duval (Chelva, 1823 - Cuenca, 1907) was a Spanish merchant and politician of the mid-nineteenth century. Gil Roger Vázquez (1862-1940) was his son, the lawyer and liberal politician.

From humble beginnings, he began to work as a cloth merchant and made his fortune transporting wood from the forests of the province of Cuenca, along the Júcar and Turia rivers, to Valencia. He had wooden warehouses in Madrid, Cuenca, Toledo, La Roda, Menjíbar, Aranjuez, Alicante and Valencia, which he later transformed into sawmills to make boxes for oranges and tobacco. Thanks to his political contacts and the confidence of General Prim he received the concession of the railroad from Valencia to Cuenca and his fame as a businessman made Prim himself entrust his industrial interests to him in Andalusia.

He participated in politics within the Progressive Party since 1849, with which he was first mayor and then mayor of Chelva. During the progressive biennium he was captain of the National Militia in Cuenca, and later he supported the various uprisings of General Prim prior to the revolution of 1868.

He was elected deputy by Chelva in the general election of 1871, and after the assassination of Prim and the breakdown of the Progressive Party he supported Práxedes Mateo Sagasta and Antonio Romero Ortiz, first in the Constitutional Party and then in his successor, the Partido Liberal, with which he was elected senator in 1881, 1886 and 1893-1894. In 1874 he was also for a time governor of the province of Valencia.

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