Benjamin Wegner
Jacob Benjamin Wegner ( born February 21, 1795 in Königsberg, East Prussia, † May 22 1864 in Christiania, Norway ) was a German industrialist and landowner in Norway.
Life
A native of East Prussia was one of the two owners of the Modum blue colors work and headed the company from 1822 to 1848 as Director General. The plant was the largest industrial companies in Norway, and he was regarded as an important social reformer. He was also one of the owners of iron works Hassel and Hafslund Guts, with large Waldbesitzungen in Norway. In 1836 he bought the manor Frogner ( with Frognerseteren and today Frognerpark ) in Aker at Christiania, where he lived until 1849. He was also General of the Hanseatic cities of Hamburg ( where his in-laws were sitting in the Senate ), Lübeck and Bremen and the Kingdom of Portugal. He was married in 1824 to Henriette Seyler ( 1805-1875 ). She was the daughter of the Hamburg banker Ludwig Erdwin Seyler ( chef and co-owner of Berenberg Bank) and Anna Henriette Goßler, and the granddaughter of the banker Johann Hinrich Gossler and Elisabeth Berenberg, and the theater director Abel Seyler.
Before he moved to Norway, he worked as a businessman in the Prussian capital Berlin, mainly in the large export of timber and grain from the Baltic Sea to England and worked closely with the English trading house Isaac Solly and Sons. He was a friend and agent of the English art collector Edward Solly and played a role in the founding of the Berlin Gemäldegalerie. His most important business partners in Germany and Norway was Christian Wilhelm Benecke of Gröditzberg, from 1822 onwards, the majority owner of the Modum blue colors work.
His children were married to members of different prominent families in Norway. His son Johann Ludwig Wegner (* 1830) was a judge in Norway and with Blanca Bretteville, daughter of the Norwegian Prime Minister Christian Zetlitz Bretteville, married, and was father of the President of the Supreme Court Karenus Kristofer Thinn. His second son, Henry Benjamin Wegner (* 1833) was timber merchant and the youngest son of George Wegner (* 1847) was a lawyer at the Supreme Court. Benjamin Wegner grandfather was the internationally renowned war correspondent and Labour Minister in the Provisional Government in China Benjamin Wegner Nørregaard, the President of the Norwegian Red Cross Nikolai Nissen Paus, director of the Norwegian Employers' Association George Wegner Paus and the President of the Norwegian Bar Association Harald Nørregaard. His descendants live in Norway.