The controversial chemical that gives its name to an entire neighborhood in Esplugues

You may have often wondered about the origin of the name of the Can Vidalet neighbourhood in Esplugues de Llobregat. In fact, in the same neighbourhood there is a park of the same name, the Can Vidalet Park, a green lung of almost four hectares. The answer to all this can be found in a family estate that had been in the area since 1863: Josep Vidal Ribas, a key businessman in 19th century Catalonia active in various sectors, especially the chemical sector.

It is not easy to delve into Vidal Ribas's personal life because his hyperactivity in business was accompanied by extreme discretion when it came to his personal life, so the details that have come down to us are rather scarce. One of the reasons is that, unlike many businessmen of his time, Vidal Ribas did not enter politics or assume prominent roles in civil society outside the economy. He took his first steps as a chemical products merchant (what was known as drugs) in the centre of Barcelona, ​​on Vidrieria Street, very close to the Born. Later he moved the business to the Palau Dalmases on Montcada Street, where he met two businessmen who would leave their mark: Joaquim Alomar Font and Joan Uriach Feliu from Andrena, who had just laid the foundations for what is now the large pharmaceutical company Uriach.

Vidal Ribas's social rise was confirmed by his entry as a member of the Board of Trade of Barcelona (1842), an entity created in 1758, but linked to previous organizations since 1692. Two years after his appointment, he became a shareholder in the Bank of Barcelona, ​​​​an entity of great weight. Also in the money sector, in 1856 he joined the businessman Antoni Brusi Ferrer, owner of the Barcelona Diary, to create the Catalan General Credit Society, an investment bank aimed at financing the Catalan business world, especially the railway sector. In this adventure he was accompanied by other great financiers of the time such as Josep Jover Sans and Isidor Pons Roura.

It was also at this time that he began trading activities with the other side of the Atlantic, triangulating between Barcelona, ​​Spanish Guinea and America. The first formal trip (1855) ended badly because he was arrested by the British authorities on charges of slave trafficking. The accusation was not proven and Vidal Ribas was compensated. Despite this start, his trading activity increased in the following years. The main products he traded were wine, brandy and palm oil, but he was soon intercepted by the English again. On this second occasion, the courts considered that there were reasons to believe that Vidal Ribas and his partners were planning to dedicate themselves to slaves, which ended up leading to the closure of the business with very significant losses. By the way, in one of these trials the lawyer of our protagonist was none other than Laureà Figuerola, the man who years later would go down in history as the creator of the peseta. By the end of his life, Vidal Ribas had become one of the main taxpayers in the city of Barcelona, ​​which gives an idea of ​​his fortune. Once the city walls had fallen, he also acted as a property developer in the expansion area through the company Foment de l'Eixample. His son had the Casa Vidal Ribas (1863-1963) built at Passeig de Gràcia, 19, where the Barcelona Stock Exchange is now located (the original property was demolished to make way for the headquarters of the Banco Exterior de España).

After his death, the business passed into the hands of his sons and continued to grow, adding colonial products to traditional drugstore products. This second generation took a leap forward because they led the Compañía Anónima de Productos Químicos (1881), a merger of several firms in the sector that became the first large chemical company in Catalonia. One of his grandsons, José Vidal-Ribas Güell, was interim president of Barça twice, in 1942 and 1953.

In recent years, the figure of Josep Vidal Ribas has been fully affected by the wave of historical revisionism, so his past as a slave trader has meant that the street that bore his name in Esplugues has changed its name, a circumstance that is likely to be repeated soon in Sant Feliu de Llo.