Louis Gerhard De Geer
Baron Louis Gerard De Geer Finspång ( born July 18, 1818 in Finspång, † September 24, 1896 in Hanaskog, Skåne County Province) was a Swedish politician, writer and first Prime Minister of Sweden ( Sveriges Statsminister ).
Family, study and career
De Geer came from the influential family Louis de Geer from Wallonia, which settled in the 17th century in Sweden and came also the zoologist and entomologist Carl De Geer. His son Louis De Geer was also for a short time Prime Minister.
De Geer himself graduated from in 1836 to study law at the University of Uppsala, which he finished with the exam in 1840, and was subsequently established himself as a lawyer. 1855 he was appointed to the President of the Court of Appeal of Götaland ( Göta Hovrätten ) in Jönköping. This office he held until 1858.
June 3, 1870 to May 11, 1875, he was finally President of the manorial court of Stockholm.
Political career
MP, Minister and founder of the new Reichstag
De Geer began his political career in 1851 with the first election for Members of the Reichstag of the stands. It was a meeting which consisted of four chambers, which represented one of the four estates (nobility, clergy, burghers and peasants ).
On April 7, 1858, he was appointed Minister of Justice of King Oscar I for the first time, an office which was created in 1809 and in addition to the Prime Minister of Foreign Affairs for the conduct of government business was responsible. This office he held then first of all to 3 June 1870.
Its most important task in this office was the renewal of the Parliamentary system. In December 1865, the Reichstag of the stands of his reform agreed that the existing dissolution of the Reichstag of the stands in favor of one from time two chambers ( the House of Commons, House of Lords ) Reichstag envisaged. This reform agreed at the June 22, 1866 and King Charles XV. , so that in the following year, the new Reichstag was elected for the first time. De Geer was from 1867 to 1878 member of the Reichstag, there represented the interests of Stockholm and placed at the same time as prime minister of justice several other reform bills before.
First Prime Minister of Sweden
On May 11, 1875, the very popular politician of King Oscar II was re-appointed to the Prime Minister of the judiciary.
According to a government reform he was then on March 20, 1876 the first Prime Minister of Sweden ( Sveriges Statsminister ). On April 19, 1880, he resigned from the post of prime minister, after he suffered an electoral defeat for his army and tax reform. Successor was the former House speaker Arvid Posse.
As a politician, he was an advocate of free trade and economic liberalism, which led to strong economic growth in Sweden 1870-1970.
Writer and university rector
Because of its high level of commitment he was in 1862 elected a member of the Swedish Academy, where he occupied the 17th chair until his death, on, inter alia, Hjalmar Hammarskjöld Dag Hammarskjöld and were appointed later. In the same year, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences took him on as a member. Starting 1859, he was a member of the Kungliga och Vitterhets History Antikvitets academies.
After retiring from politics, he was from 1881 to 1888 Chancellor of the Universities of Uppsala and Lund.
In addition, De Geer was also active as a writer who has written several novels and essays:
- Hjertklapp Eingen pa Dalwik. Stockholm 1841
- Carl the Folstes page. Stockholm 1845.
Far more important, however, were his political biographies ( Minnesteckning ):
- Minnesteckning öfver Hans Järta. Stockholm 1874
- Minnesteckning öfver Anders Johan von Höpken. Stockholm 1881
- Minnesteckning öfver Bogislaw Baltzar von Platen. Stockholm 1886
- Minnen. Stockholm 1892 ( autobiography ).