Gregorio González Azaola, professor of natural sciences, translator, man of letters, chemist, and politician, was the son of Mr. Silvestre González y Fernández, chief clerk of the Burgos postal and courier service, a native of Lomas de Villamediana (Burgos), and Ms. Damiana de Azaola y Bolumburu, a native of Begoña (Vizcaya), who were married in Burgos on August 21, 1775, at the parish church of San Lesmes. The couple had two other children, Íñigo (June 1, 1779) and Juan Pablo (born in 1780). He married—the date and place are unknown—Tomasa Sancho Granado and died suddenly in Santander, leaving behind two young daughters, María de la Paz and Celestina Dolores.
He studied at the Piarist school in Villacarriedo (1783–1788) and later trained in Madrid as a student of Louis Proust at the Royal Chemistry Laboratory and the Practical School of Chemistry (1800–1804). Upon completing his studies, he became Proust’s assistant at the Royal Laboratory and a chemistry teacher for the royal pages. In October 1807, he was appointed professor in charge of the Chemistry Laboratory. In December 1808, the laboratory was ransacked by the French army, and Azaola moved to Seville, arriving in November 1809.
In 1814, he presented to the government a plan for a company to promote navigation on the Guadalquivir River from Córdoba to Sanlúcar de Barrameda, which was published in collaboration with Alexandro Briarly as *Navigation of the Guadalquivir: Prospectus of the Plan and the Guadalquivir Navigation Company*, by the commissioners appointed for that purpose by His Majesty…, a company authorized and approved by the Royal Order of August 8, 1815.
During the Liberal Triennium, he entered politics as a deputy for the province of Seville in the legislative sessions of 1820 and 1821 and resigned from Congress on February 14, 1822, only to reappear in Huelva in April of that same year as the first political leader. Laureano Gutiérrez would replace him in October of that same year.
On March 16, 1826, he was ordered to take up a post as commissioner to revitalize the Royal Factories of Liérganes and La Cavada. By that time, he already had contacts with the Provincial Council of the Lordship of Biscay, which are reflected in two important documents: Second Report on the Importance and Urgency of Improving Iron Production in Biscay and Means to Achieve It, Santander, March 19, 1827, and Written Report by Don Gregorio González Azaola on the Somorrostro Mines and the Improvement of Iron Production. Year 1827, undated, in which he advocates for the Palmer-style railway, a precursor to today’s monorails.
In the midst of efforts to revitalize La Cavada, in March 1828 he began preparations for his “Mission to England and France to gather information on advances in iron smelting.” Bureaucratic red tape and an illness, resulting from the harsh weather, delayed his departure until late August, when he set off for Paris, where he met with the Marquis of Pontejos and Joaquín María Ferrer, who, with the collaboration of Martín de los Heros, put him in touch, in Liège,