Baard Iversen

Baard Iversen

Baard Iversen (22 September 1836–15 March 1920) was a Norwegian businessperson and politician.

Iversen was born in 1836 in Akerø. In 1854, at the age of eighteen he left home for the city Ålesund. Here, he began a career in trade.[1] Also, he met the local girl Anna Johanne Georgine Junge, who he married.[2][3] In 1862, he moved to the larger city Trondhjem to establish his own trade agency.[1] He was awarded burghership the same year, and opened his first store B. Iversen. He moved the store to larger premises one year later, and expanded the field of business.[3]

In 1868, Iversen's company entered the shipping business, investing in a freight boat route between Trondhjem and Frederikshald. Iversen later became a ship-owner, his first ship built in 1872 for traffic in the North Sea and the Baltic Sea. In 1890 a route between Trondhjem and Newcastle was established.[3] Iversen also campaigned for a decent railway connection between Trondhjem and the southern cities. From 1895 he was a member of the working committee of the proposed Dovre Line,[1] which would connect Trondhjem to the capital Oslo via Lillehammer. It finally opened in 1921, one year after Iversen's death. Still, he was nicknamed "the father of the Dovre Line".[3]

Iversen was also involved in local politics and organizational life. He was a member of the executive committee of Trondhjem city council from 1881 to 1892,[4] and chaired several public committees.[3] He represented his city in the Norwegian Parliament as a deputy representative during the term 1892–1894.[5] He co-founded the local chapter of the Conservative Party in 1883.[6] He was also chairman of the Trondheim Commercial Association (Trondhjems Handelsforening) in several periods, and was a member of the Federation of Norwegian Commercial Associations from 1894 to 1900.[1]

Baard Iversen moved to rural Strinda in 1890. His son-in-law Trygve Marstrand Jørgensen became a partner in the company in 1907, and took over in 1915. Baard Iversen died in 1920.[3] He had been proclaimed Knight of the Royal Norwegian Order of St. Olav in 1900[4] and Commander of the same order in 1910.[1]

His life became the inspiration for the novel Brostein, published in 2003 by Toril Brekke.[7]

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 Johansen, O.J. (1936). Den tusenårige by ved Nidelven. Trondhjem fra Olav Tryggvason til Håkon VII (PDF) (in Norwegian).
  2. ↑ "Genealogy" (in Norwegian).
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Brissach, Ingrid J. (15 August 2007). "Dovrebanens far". Adresseavisen (in Norwegian). Retrieved 2008-10-18.
  4. 1 2 "Iversen, Baard". Aschehoug og Gyldendals Store norske leksikon (in Norwegian). Kunnskapsforlaget. 2007.
  5. ↑ "Baard Iversen" (in Norwegian). Norwegian Social Science Data Services (NSD).
  6. ↑ Øksendal, Lars; et al. (1993). Trondheim Høyre 110 år. 1883–1993 (in Norwegian). Trondheim. p. 13.
  7. ↑ "Trondheim public library" (in Norwegian).
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