| Urbanization
| | In the course of the 19th century Helsingborg developed from a coastal situated city to an important – according to Swedish conditions – industrial and trade city. |
Migration
| | Many Swedes as well as Danes emigrated overseas, mainly to America, but also the Copenhagen area attracted the population surplus from rural areas on both sides of the Sound. Gradually the urbanization increased also in the smaller towns in the Sound region in line with the industrialization. |
The Scanian towns from the Middle Ages had not developed significantly in population to the year of 1800. An exception is Malmo, which had a boom in the 1600th century, but after the war and the plague it receded significantly. Even Landskrona had an expansion period, but that took place in the 1800th century. The city that had suffered the most in connection with the war was Helsingborg.
This is the population in the cities around the Sound in 1800, arranged after size:
Malmo: 3.962
Landskrona: 3.827
Lund: 3.086
Ystad: 2.460
Kristianstad: 2.369
Helsingborg: 1.741
Ängelholm: 697
Simrishamn: 644
Skanö: 526
Falsterbo: 156
In comparison Lund in the 1200th century had around 3000-4000 inhabitants. The Scanian towns were small and often parishes were larger than towns when it came to population. There was no Scanian city that could equal any of the three largest cities in Sweden (Stockholm with 75.517 inhabitants, Gothenburg with 12.804 and Karlskrona with 10.166). But one hundred years were to change the picture completely and in the year 1900 the population number in the Scanian cities, arranged after size:
Malmo: 60.857
Helsingborg: 24.670
Lund: 16.621
Landskrona: 14.399
Kristianstad: 10.318
Ystad: 9.862
Ängelhom: 2.784
Simrishamn: 2.062
Skanör: 667
Falsterbo: 266
After having stood still for several hundred years the development exploded in a number of Scanian cities during the 19th century. The causes for this development are to be found in the industrialization and the efforts to expand the infrastructure together with the general population increase, which took place during this century, a population increase, which according to Tegnér was caused by “peace, vaccine and potatoes”. In Sweden the abolishment of the compulsory guild and the introduction of freedom of trade in 1864 a stimulating effect on everything. Malmo and Helsingborg were the cities that grew the most east of the Sound.
The Development of Copenhagen
In the period 1800 to 1900 the population of Copenhagen increased from 100.000 to 500.000. This was a gigantic urbanization process, which took place in connection with the industrial breakthrough in the Copenhagen area from around the middle of the 1900th century, where the machine industry began to play an important part. But just as important was the building industry, which arose around the capital, when they began to expand the limits of the Middle Age city and began huge construction works in connection with the expansion of the infrastructure, the laying out of residential areas, industrial areas, railways and expansion of the harbour.
Copenhagen Central Station in 1870 |
The forgotten migration
The city’s population growth was primarily a result of an increasing population deficit in the rural areas. People sought better living conditions in the metropolitan area and many emigrated, mostly to America.
This process took place all over Denmark, but to a large extent also on the other side of the Sound. The Swedish emigration to America was significantly larger than the Danish and was largely from the tight-fisted landscapes in Småland, but a substantial part also came from Scania and emigrants from here also went to the more dynamic development centre around Copenhagen. It is still discussed precisely how many, because a major part, especially in the rural areas only came as seasonal workers. Also changing market condition played a part, but a total Swedish emigration of around 80.000 is not completely off the mark.
There are good explanations of this development. The dynamic development process in the Copenhagen area went beyond the national border, Scania is not far from Zealand, the infrastructure was enlarged substantially and in southern Sweden the industrial development process apparently less substantial and it came later. In other words there was a clear need for labour and there was work to be found in the metropolitan region. One very significant difference was the wage rate, which is said to have been from one third up to twice as high than in south Sweden. The immigration came largely from rural areas in south Sweden and mostly from southwestern Scania.
A so-called Backstuge | 
Swedish immigration in Denmark |
The Working-power Moves
A great deal of the immigrants, mainly men and young people, found work in the two metropolitan municipalities (Copenhagen and Frederiksberg). The women to a large extent found work in the textile industry, but they also worked as domestic servants. In the surrounding municipalities there were larger workplaces, for instance tile works with large groups of Swedish workers. Labour also went to rural municipalities like Tårnby in Amager, partly to replace Danish labour, which went to the cities, but also to labour intensive gardening and beet growing, the latter also outside the metropolitan area.
Swedes in Denmark
Around the turn of the century it is estimated that there were approximately 16.000 Swedes, which corresponded to one third of the entire population. In the county as a whole the Swedes constituted approximately 4%, but there were variations, highest in Tårnby in Amager, where they contributed more than 5%.
With the building of the shipyard in Elsinore 700 workers were employed and the number of registered Swedes in the area is quadrupled in 1883, where there were 592 Swedish workers. 189 in the shipyard and in the textile factory in the nearby Hellebæk most of the women workers came from Scania.
At the end of the 19th century changes were made in the poverty legislation, which meant a hollowing out of the right of foreigners to provide in Denmark, partly as a result of a changed view of foreigners from 1875, partly because of changes in poverty legislation in 1891, which demanded Danish birthright in order to obtain provision rights.
From the end of the 1890´s immigration dropped heavily, which was largely due to an increasing industrialization in Malmo and Helsingborg and also in the farming industry in connection with the sugar beet growing in southwestern Scania. In time Scania was able to maintain the surplus labour also as a result of increasing wages.
Hellebæk Textile Factory | 
Frederiksholm´s Tile Works |
Swedish church in Copenhagen
Some of the roughly 16.000 Swedish immigrants found comfort aginst homesickness - and the often tough work conditions - in the church. On the initiative of the local Swedish priests and married couple, Niels and Ruth Widner,considerable amounts of money were raised for the building of a Swedish church in Copenhagen.
However, it was not until 1910 that the Svenska Gustafskyrkan was opened with a celebratory servce. It was Theodor Wählin, the architect behind the restoration of Lund Cathedral, who realized the final design in the Art Nouveau style of the period.
A remarkable gift at the opening was the oil sketch for ”Blinda Brita i bodadräkt” from the world-famous Swedish painter, Carl Larssons (1853 – 1919). One of the few paintings by this artist on Danish soil!
The Swedish Gustaf Church in Copenhagen |
Malmo – The Cradle of the Labour Movement
| | In the beginning of the 19th century Malmo was still a small town, but the population grew steadily in connection with the industrialization in the second half of the 19th century. |
In the 19th century, when the Sound once again became a link between Scania and Zealand, the opportunities to get impulses from the continent via Denmark, was opened again. Important ideas, which marked Europe in the middle of the 19th century, were liberalism, nationalism and socialism. Liberalism and nationalism were part of the ideas of Scandinavism, but even socialism had a Scandinavistic mark in the Sound region.
The Proletariate
In Scania and Sweden, where the industrialization came late, there was even before the breakthrough of the industrialism, a proletariat, which consisted of workers from the old agriculture and the farming proletariat, which was formed in connection with the agricultural revolution. These farm workers worked on the large estates and were paid in kind. They had a small home in a farm workers wing, which was a terraced house with one-room flats. In the country as well as in the growing cities poverty was great in the 19th century and Stockholm was in the middle of the 19th century one the poorest cities in Europe. Farm workers and working men had no way of making demands on the employers.
Farm Workers´ wing |
The Industrialism of Malmo
Malmo was industrialized and urbanized to a great extent between 1860 and 1900, where the population was more than tripled. Large industries were founded. Already in 1840 Frans Fredrik Kockum had founded a mechanical workshop, in which railway cars were built in the 1850´s and in the 1870´s shipbuilding began. In 1966 the Malmo wool factory was founded, which became one of the largest textile factories in the North. The Malmo Mill from 1881 became Sweden’s largest producer of wheat flour and Malmo Assorted Chocolates (Mazetti) grew to be one of the largest in the business. In 1890 The Scanian Cement Ltd started a cement factory in Limhamn. The main railway was finished in 1864 and Malmo had a railway station area, which was the largest in Sweden.
Malmo´s Harbour in the 1880´s | 
Kockum´s Factories | 
Malmo Station |
Cooperation over the Borderline
The improved communications across the Sound caused emigration to increase during the 19th century. This was particularly evident in the Malmo-Copenhagen region, which had the largest populations. Almost 2500 Malmo inhabitants emigrated to Denmark in 1840-64 and more than 1000 Danes moved to Malmo in 1841-64. The newly established links across the Sound certainly had great importance when it came to the influence of new ideas and the daily contacts were many, which also were important to the development of the labour movement in southern Sweden.
Therefore it is not strange that strikes and conflicts erupted almost simultaneously in Copenhagen and Malmo. In the 1860´s and 70´s unions were formed in Scania and among the first were the cork cutters, the tobacco workers and the glovers. The Danes influenced the forming of the unions both ideologically and practically. When there were conflicts in Copenhagen it was important that the Scanians showed solidarity and were not tempted to go to Copenhagen because the wages were higher there. The higher wages in Copenhagen could also during industrial peace tempt more workers to go to Denmark and thus press the wages. And therefore the principles of equal pay on both sides of the Sound became an objective for the cross-frontier collaboration.
At first the unions were not necessarily linked to socialism, but were partly formed by the liberalistic ideas´ of better development and the extended right to vote. The man, who started to join the labour movement with socialist ideas in Denmark, was Louis Pio and Harald Brix, who started the weekly paper “Socialisten” in 1871. In Sweden August Palm was the pioneer and his political agitation started in Malmo, to where he had returned after spending12 years in Germany and Denmark. In these countries he had found his socialist conviction.
Palm – the Speacher
November 6th 1881 Palm delivered his first speech in Malmo. The subject was, “What do the socialists want?” and this became the start of his long agitator activity. Like a revivalist he tried to wake up the Swedish working classes and make them see that socialism was the right way to go in order to obtain justice and improvements. And the workers were not always easy to wake! Palm had finished school at ten and had no academic education. In spite of this he became an orator and his listeners were fascinated by his commitment to the socialist cause.
Palm was not always allowed to speak in the halls of the establishment and was often referred to hills and slopes. Priests, factory owners, landowners and the middle classes, were frightened, but industrial and farm workers sought out his pulpit. Unflaggingly he travelled all over the country. In Stockholm he founded the newspaper “Socialdemokraten”. In the first issue (9/25 1885) a battle song was published, written by a farm worker’s son, Henrik Menander, who was an old friend of Palm. Palm had heard Menander sing the song, and now he wanted to publish it. (“Arbetets söner” was actually sung for the first time on a boat trip on the Sound August 2. 1885.)
”Arbetets söner, sluten er alla
Till våra bröder i Syd och i Nord!
Hören I ej, hur mäktigt de skalla
Ut öfver världen, befrielsens ord?
Ur den förnedrande
Träldomens grift
Upp till en hedrande
Ädel bedrift!
Oket med påskriften: ”Bed och försaka”
Länge oss nedtryckt i mörker och nöd;
Människovärdet vi fordra tillbaka,
Kämpa för rättvisa, frihet och bröd.
Icke naturen hårdhänt har dragit
Gränser, som skilja fattig och rik;
Hjärtlöst har makten under sig slagit
Alla dess håfvor, rofdjuret lik.
Mot den förödande
Guldkalfvens stod
Kämpen med glödande
Känslor och mod!
Käckt mot förtrycket ett värn vi oss dana.
Fältropet genom nationerna går:
Sluten Er under vår enighets fana,
Fällen ej modet, och segern är vår!”
Malmoe – the center
When working with the “Social-Demokraten” Palm was joined by three young committed socialists, Hjalmar Branting, Fredrik Sterky and Axel Danielsson. They were all between 20 and 25 years old when the 36-year-old Palm settled down in Stockholm in 1885. They were well educated, while Palm was almost hostile towards person with an academic degree. It could be said that he despised the intelligentsia. Both Branting and Sterky were raised in families that belonged to the upper classes. Axel Danielsson was the son of a workingman, so Palm was especially fond of him. Branting wanted to intellectualise socialism, which Palm of course opposed, but Branting won and took over the paper. Palm faded into obscurity behind Branting, but continued his life as an agitator. Axel Danielsson left Stockholm and settled in Malmo, where he started the newspaper “Arbetet” in 1887. He stayed in Malmo for 13 years.
August Palm | 
Axel Danielsson | 
The Newspaper | 
The Bricklayers´ Union |
Danielsson – without fear
Axel Danielsson´s move to Malmo had great effect for the labour movement and the development of socialism in southern Sweden. In “Arbetet” the movement had a medium, which engaged and frightened people. The brave Axel Danielsson wrote in such a way that the middle classes hated him and the workers loved him. Under the signature Marat, he made a lot of enemies because of his sharp and terse style. Danielsson was not afraid of anybody and in connection with a trial against the prison director in Malmo this was evident.
The prison director had raked together 4.704 kroner and 8 øre by selling sacks, which the inmates made. Almost 5000 kroner was a lot of money in those days. The prison director was suspended for six months, which Danielsson thought was ridiculous and in “Arbetet” he attacked the constitutional state. For this attack Danielsson was sentenced to one year in prison (1888). This was the beginning of a persecution of Danielsson and he was subject to more charges, among them a charge for blasphemy, when he interviewed God in his newspaper. In all Danielsson was in prison for 18 months. (Not only Danielsson, but also Branting and Palm were sent to prison for what they said and wrote)
Danielsson – the Reformer
When Danielsson came out of prison he started to work more and more for socialism on the ground of reformism, i.e. that the ideas had to be carried through lawfully and not through revolution. This pragmatic policy had many people reproach him for disassociating himself from the pure Marxist doctrine. This made Danielsson bitter. But one man understood his greatness. August Strindberg wrote in his blue book: “He never knew how great he was; he thought he was despised, he lived in despondency and humiliation, but underneath he was feared and admired”. Later a great deal of those who slandered him took on Danielsson´s pragmatic socialism.
Danielsson was never nice to himself, neither mentally nor physically and he died early at a sanatorium in Elsterberg in Germany the day before New Years Eve in 1899. He was 36 years old. His funeral became a great manifestation. The streets of Malmo were laced with workers from Kockum, the wool factory and from all of Scania. A fifteen-year-old Malmo boy remembers this day. His name was Per Albin Hansson.
Malmo´s importance as a workers´ city was consolidated when the city had the first Peoples´ Park in the country and the term “The Peoples´ House” was used for the first time about the “Peoples house in Malmo in 1893. These common rooms were created so that workers and their families had a place to meet. The landlords of the halls did not always welcome the labour movement as tenants.Helsingborg – swiftly
| | In the course of the 19th century Helsingborg developed from a coastal situated city to an important – according to Swedish conditions – industrial and trade city. |
„For my part I am inclined to follow those, who put Helsingborg before all else. Not because it is not possible to find landscapes more grand, just as scenic and striking at first view, but because this one interests me more in the long run. The other Swedish landscapes have grandeur, are pleasant and what not; But they have no life, they have this primeval silence, this sacrosanct solemnity, which seems pathetic in the moment, but becomes suppressive at length; here you have a painting with figures, a moving, constant varied and renewed scene; it is a nature, which is not tiresome, but you can associate with it instead of just admiring it. Get up early one spring morning, when the sun is upon the Danish coast, in these gardens, boldly situated here and there in the changeable cut cliffs, under whose shadows Helsingborg is laid out; get up, if you will, and view the Sound! This ocean, which is but a river here! But a river with hundreds of ships, East- and West Indian Sea faring ships, Americans, Britons, line ships from Archangel, fruit ships from the Mediterranean! View this blackboard, so alone in kind, so full of colour and emotion, and so dramatic.”
Thus Patrik Sturzen-Becker depicted the small town of Helsingborg in 1851, a town, which then had around 4000 inhabitants.
Consul Olsson
At this time a young man from Fleninge worked as a shop assistant in town. This young, deeply religious man’s name was Petter Olsson and he once asked the vicar, Peter Wieselgren, if he could become a priest. Since this was an expensive education and Petter Olsson was poor, Wieselgren advised him to become a teacher instead. But Petter Olsson went another way. In 1853, the year the Crimean War broke out, he dared to start his own business in corn.
England, who was in the war on the side of the Turks against the Russians, did not get enough corn during the war and a great deal of Olsson’s corn stock went to London, where the horses needed power in order to pull trams, among other things. The profit was good, of course, and with the optimism of the future, which was a mark of the 19th century, Olsson began to build an empire. He also realized the need for good communications in order to transport corn to the storehouse in Kullagatan, where he also lived and he also realized that a good harbour in order to carry the oats to the horses in London. (He did not only have his home in the storehouse, but it was also used as church service hall for the revivalist meetings he held.)
Petter Olsson | 
Workers | 
he Harbour 1893-94 | 
Consul Olsson´s Granary |
The Infrastructure
Through his municipal activities Consul Olsson could press the questions concerning improved communications. In the period 1865-85 he contributed to making it possible for Helsingborg to have railway lines in every direction. At first to Billeberga-Esløv, then to Hässleholm and to Åstorp and Värnamo. Thus the city was connected with the big railways and had railway lines to Stockholm, Gothenburg and Malmo. At the same time the harbour was enlarged and made deeper with more new basins and Sweden´s first train ferry connection to abroad was opened on the H-H- fairway in 1892.
The enlargement of the harbour had en effect on the Helsingborg shipping business and at the end of the century the city had the third largest merchant navy. Petter Olsson started more industries, among them tileworks, the steam mill and the rubber factory, where Henry Dunker later would start the rubber shoe fabrication. He was enthusiastic about the development of the city, but also about Evangelical religion. The mission building on Kullagatan was built thanks to Petter Olsson. He was throughout his life faithful to his religious beliefs and said that he would make Helsingborg to “a city, which honoured God”. His large family spent the summers in the leisure villa “Öresundslyst” on the Danish side of the Sound.
Consul Persson
Another young man came from Allerum into town and also started to work in a shop. His name was Nils Persson and he was outgoing and sociable man. Even he dared to open his own business and started to import fertilizer, which he sold to the farmers. He started to speculate about the opportunities to manufacture on his own and soon founded “Fosfaten”, a fertilizer factory on the south side of town.
The profits were of course good and he expanded his empire, adding the copper works, where he used and processed by-products from the phosphate factory. He also started the team tile works, which was a lucky venture, since Helsingborg and Copenhagen were to build heavily in the latter part of the 19th century. (He manufactured red tile unlike Olsson´s yellow and in town they often discussed which areas the two gentlemen occupied, and yes, they could see it on the tile.) Persson donated an area on Södergatan next to the churchyard to the city, and this was to be used as graveyard, and the profits were to go to “pauvre honteux”, the needy in Helsingborg.
Nils Persson | 
The Phosphate Factory | 
The Industrial Area |
The Town of the Consuls
Olsson and Persson ruled the city. They had large industries, participated in the management of the city and also sat in the parliament. Important persons were often given consul titles and this title was given to Olsson as well as Persson. At the turn of the century Helsingborg was called “the city of consuls”. These two men were very similar, when it came to initiative and business, but privately they were opposites. While Olsson lived a simple life in his apartment next to his storehouse on Kullagatan, Persson led a dissipated life in the luxurious villa near the hospital. Olsson spent his leisure time studying the bible, while Persson visited Ramlösa. Olsson was a teetotaller, Persson was not.
Moving to Helsingborg
The two consuls´ businesses speeded up Helsingborg. Between 1860 and 1900 the population was increased five times and no other city in Sweden could show a population increase like that. In the years 1850-1920 the population of Helsingborg increased with 1149%, while the neighbouring city, Landskrona had an 493% increase and Lund a 346% increase. Malmo was close by with an increase of 867%. (The banishment of the Sound duty in 1857 also benefited Helsingborg on the expense of the nearest neighbouring city, Elsinore.)
It is said that the flow of people to Helsingborg at times was so heavy that the city´s registration office could not keep up. The vicar sometimes was so exhausted that he had to leave the pen. It is evident that the appearance of the city changed because of the active building activity. The trend of architecture at the end of the 19th century was richly represented in the city. The neo-classicism and the neo-renaissance are evident along Järnvägsgatan, Trädgårdsgatan and Drottninggatan, and the neo-Gothic style is exemplified in the Town Hall, the GA Church and the Nicolai School. The large influx of workers resulted in the building of a great deal of workmen’s houses, especially in the south part of town, where the industry was located.
A Clash of Style | 
The Town Hall in Helsingborg | 
The Gustav Adolf Church. |
Consul Trapp
Another man with a consul’s title deserves mention as he was engaged in preserving the old Helsingborg in the transformation process, which was taking place. Oscar Trapp, who lived in Frederiksdal, was interested in history and this interest combined with a municipal involvement resulted in the renovation and restoration of Kärnan, the Maria Church was renovated and excavations at some of the old middle age churches were carried out. He was also instrumental in the preservation of Jakob Hansen´s house from the 17th century. He was also the man behind Sweden´s flag. As a member of parliament he proposed that the flag should have certain nuances and not nuances of yellow and blue varying from flag to flag. His motion was carried and thus the Swedish flag in the 1906 law on the flag of the realm, got the colours it has today.
Oscar Trapp 1847-1916 | 
Fredriksdal | 
Oversæt |
Sturzen-Becker
If Malmo in the 1880´s and the 90´s had a socialist mouthpiece in Axel Danielsson´s “Arbetet”, Helsingborg had from the end of the 1840´s a radical-liberal platform in the newspaper “Öresundsposten”. Very early he spoke for the abolition of the Assembly of the Estates of the Realm, for the republic and extended suffrage. The demands for increased freedom and the diminishing of injustice were constantly recurring in the columns and tirades were shot at the church and at the time not least the well-known teetotaler and vicar, Peter Wieselgren. After Scandinavism had been toned down at the end of the 1860´s, the newspaper supported the independence of Norway and thus worked for the dissolution of the Union.
Öresundsposten had great impact in the country and became difficult for the state. The criticism against the monarchy, the injustices and the Union, resulted in the intervention of the authorities and the newspaper was closed down several times, but rose again, like Aftonbladet, with a new name. This is why the name w Öresundsposten as changed from Öresundsposten to Allmänna Öresundsposten and later changed name to Nyera Öresundsposten, and, when that was banned, to Nyaste Öresundsposten.
Sturzen-Becker | 
Öresundsposten | 
Peter Wieselgren |
The Propandagist
Öresundsposten was founded in 1847 by Oscar Patrik Sturzen-Becker, who very early turned it into the primary forum of Scandinavism in Sweden. He had worked in Uppsala and Stockholm as a writer and publicist. After having broken with the romantic ideals his literary activities became more realistic and he became the radical liberalism’s frontrunner. As a Scandinavist he wanted to make Swedish culture known in Denmark and he lectured in Copenhagen in the 1840´s.
He was on the side of August Blanche in a savage battle against the writer Carl Jonas Love Almqvist. In spite of this he supported Almqvist, when he had to go underground because of the charges against him in connection with he poisoning of a usurer in Stockholm. Sturzen-Becker hid Almqvist in this home in Helsingborg and later helped him escape across the Sound. Almqvist never returned to Sweden. When Carl Jonas Love Almqvist died in 1866, Sturzen-Becker wrote a poem, where rehabilitated Almqvist as a romantic and simultaneously reminded of the June morning in 1851, when Almqvist fled to Elsinore..
Fredrik Borg
Fredrik Borg, who is one of the most important persons in the history of ideas in Sweden in the 19th century, took over Öresundsposten in 1855. He was born in Landskrona in 1824 and after studies in Lund, where he very early was introduced to the continental radicalism, he worked in Stockholm as a writer and publicist and there he founded the first Socialist workers´ society (1850) in Sweden. He came to Helsingborg and Öresundsposten with recommendations from Lars Johan Hierta from Aftonbladet. The cooperation between Borg and Sturzen-Becker was not always frictionless, but the relationship between Borg and Wieselgren developed into friendship. Borg remained a romantic and never ceased to dream of a better world with freedom and justice as ideals.
Fredrik Borg |
The Radical
In July 1858 a big Scandinavistic meeting was held in Ramlösa and thousands of Danish participants were greeted with kettledrums and trumpets in the harbour of Helsingborg. The city had been decorated with flags and there was an intense festive atmosphere was prevalent. The meeting was not only a Scandinavistic manifestation, but developed into a strange history of ideas. Almost 12000 Scandinavists had gathered in Ramlösa, where Ploug, Ahnfelt and all the other Scandinavism-enthusiasts held speeches. Fredrik Borg mounted the platform and presented his view of women, which made the listeners gape. He explained that he thought it unfair to see women as “mother, wife, mistress”, while men at the same time not only was seen as “father, husband and lover”, but also as a fellow citizen and he demanded civil rights for women and the same rights to education and working life.
This was an equal rights policy, which was way ahead of its time, and Borg was the first to demand women suffrage in parliament in 1884, when he was active as a member. But his proposal was not met with sympathy for his convictions and it took 35 years before the parliament introduced women suffrage. The speech in Ramlösa was way ahead of its time and it was brilliant. Borg struck a note, which was to become a recurrent theme in Öresundsposten. The speech was printed in the paper July 16th 1858 and some of it is reported here as a source, but we cannot help quoting the ending here: “ Put her in the sunlight, in whose warmth her loving nature can bloom and yield fruits for society”.
Progresses and Friends
In Helsingborg Borg was at first plagued by the narrowness of the small town, but committed himself more and more to the development of the town as councilman as well as a member of parliament, and he subsequently became quite pleased with the change and development of Helsingborg. In the beginning of the 60´s he felt so “patriotic” that he bought “a comfortable and well-situated house near the town square”.
It is not to be forgotten that Borg – and not only the consuls – were instrumental for the origin of the railways in Helsingborg. It was also partly to Borg´s credit that the city had a new city library and a new theatre in 1877.
The Helsingborgsposten as well as Helsingborgs Tidning tried to overthrow Borg, but the harsh attacks from the competitors only led to the increase of subscribers for Öresundsposten. But Borg had more friends, which a comprehensive correspondence shows. Viktor Rydberg, Carl Jonas Love Almqvist, Lars Johan Hierta and Björnstjerne Björnson were all intimate friends and with the latter he cooperated intensively in the fight for the independence of Norway. Borg developed, perhaps because of these friendly connections into a pure liberalist and broke with the class-thinking of Socialism.
Other Effects
In the wake of the strong urbanization many things happened. We have already mentioned the city library and the new theatre, which by many were viewed as the most beautiful in the country and which insensitive politicians almost a hundred years later let become dilapidated and had torn down. But even sports made its entry. In 1868 the first international rowing regatta in the North was held and Karl XV, Prince Oskar and the Danish crown prince were there. The same year the Olympic Games were taken up again, the Swedish athletic championships were held in Helsingborg and in the same time around the first Swedish championship final in football was played, also in Helsingborg. (Örgryte won). Already in 1898 the sports ground Olympia was opened, which became one of Sweden´s most classic sports grounds.
Nobody can claim that the city was not going fast. Even in Stockholm there was surprise and in Aftonbladet shortly after the millennium you could read the following accurate description of the development of Helsingborg:
“It is like a fairy tale that Helsingborg in less than a generation has risen from a “hole”, who got by on a little overland trade and shipping, a little craft and a lot of trickery, to one of the largest and lovely cities, blossoming through the fruits of the far-sightedness and initiative of a few men."
The Theatre |
Elsinore
| | Around 1859 the first real harbour was laid out in Elsinore. Because of the annulment of the Sound Duty the city had extra appropriations, but at first that did not result in any radical changes. The investments in the city was still chiefly in trade. However, an industry was developing in mid-town and the Grønnehave area on the northern edge of town. |
“Take a town like Hillerød... No, leave it; but take Elsinore! A small, strange nest, isn’t it? Pressed together under tall hills along the sea, which lifts Kronborg imposingly on a shield, Kronborg, which seems to crush both church and town hall and the new railway station.
A jolly town, with a “salty “ mark on its inhabitants and buildings. Everything smells of the sea – the town has serves a small area and has to trust itself. It has done so in spite of the ups and downs of fate. What Marsk Stig and the Hanseatic towns and the Swedes, the plague and fires has been able to do, has been done; the town has endured – until the year 1857, where the Sound Duty was banned. That was a blow – and that in the time of my romantic s boyhood and holiday. Then the cheerful town suddenly changed its look – the old houses crumbled down – the large families split up – the upstarts gloated in secret; and often I stopped in the narrow street, to where the eastern wing of Hotel d´Øresund faces, and philosophically read the old inscription on the stones in the wall:
Manchem verdrueht, es, was er sieht,
Und muss doch leiden, das geschieht.
Now the town has pulled itself together, or is on its way. The position is excellent, the harbour is superb, the energy lifts its head – the future belongs to the big iron ship- and machine shipyard, which gives work to many hands, feeds the many mouths. There is keen competition with the capital, and something “edgy” has taken its place alongside the salt. You can feel it politically, socially, commercially; there is movement in the old nest, and no matter how conservative the town is, the breeze from the sea sweeps in and puts the mind and thoughts in motion. Nowhere in the world the flags are flown so often as in Elsinore. Stengade smartens itself up at any opportunity – the garrison remembers any little feat – but these waving flags are also the expression of the decorative traditions of the population. But the great days of the custom-house are never forgotten, when the money rolled and champagne corks popped loudly. They have their saga to live on – and it gives them an appetite to show off. The melancholy is washed down with Wiibroe ale – they lick their lips and think: The champagne will come again!”
With this description Holger Drachmann characterizes the development, which took place in Elsinore in the course of the 19th century, the transformation from Sound Duty town to modern industrial town.
Elsinore 1859 | 
The Old Pharmacy |
From Duty to Industri
For more than 400 years the town’s life and development had been closely linked to the trade and the administration, which was brought on by the Sound Duty. With the abolition of the Sound Duty in 1857 a new epoch in the history of the town was ushered in.
In spite of the sudden transition, which was marked by the banishment of the Sound Duty, it was a change, which had been underway for a long time. As early as the end of the 18th century people tried to start larger enterprises on private initiative, often in conflict with the influential interests of the guilds. Individuals like the Englishman J.D. Balfour and J.J. Claessen were pioneers, who also invented new production methods, but the big plans of starting the shipyard did not come off, and an enlargement of the harbour paid by the state did not start before the 1820´s and was mostly to the benefit of the activities, which was attached to the custom-house.
Elsinore new Town Hall
Elsinore new Town Hall was finished in 1855. Previously it had been the object of a heated debate, which wasn´t or isn´t unusual, when major changes were on the agenda. The reason for the new building was that the old town hall from the 16th century was in need of a renovation of the jail. On the way they realized that a rebuildig like that required that the old town hall had to be demolished.
The debate was whether the new Town Hall should be built in Axeltorv.
Finally the new Town Hall was built where the old one had been, but they didn´t avoid the budget excesses, known from the the present time.
Had they known in 1854/55 that the Sound Duty would disappear just two years later, the town probably wouldn´t have had such an impressive building.
Elsinore Town Hall 1830 | 
Elsinore Town Hall 1855 | 
Elsinore Town Hall 2007 |
The First Industries
The first real industrial enterprise with a high degree of mechanisation and division of labour was a gasworks, built in 1853 by the Danish Gas Company, backed by English capital and technology. Second to Odense it was the first gas works in the country, originally intended to renew the street lighting, but in the course of time it also supplied the private and business sector. The gas works was placed in the Grønnehave neighbourhood, which together with the town centre developed into an industrial centre. Here the town’s new waterworks was built and it replaced a plant, which dated all the way back to Frederik 2. In the present Højstrup Godthåb glassworks was situated from 1848 to 1895. Godthåb glassworks and other industries later came to the area. In general this was the first phase of the industrial process, from the end of the 1840´s to the middle of the 1850´s. The development is characterized by some new plants (glassworks, gasworks, tileworks and breweries, and an industry count from the year 1855 showed businesses with 354 employees, of these 20 businesses with more than 6 employees.
In the town middle a number of new industrial plants were started. Among other things Carl Wiibroe started as early as 1851 to brew Bavarian beer, which he stored in the casemates in Kronborg castle. In 1862 he bought the site by the harbour, where the remains of the brewery now lay opposite Hestemøllestræde, and where he in 1878 built storerooms and installed engine power. Carl Wiibroe was also very active in the public life, as early as 1842 he was elected to the municipal council, where he became chairman several times around.
Another entrepreneur in the town centre was Jens Levin Tvede, who transformed a small distillery in Sudergade to a manufacturing business in Stjernegade, where he made spirits, snaps, yeast and household beer. He was also contributory to the fact that the telephone came into use in Elsinore around 1880. J.L. Tvede was elected town council man in 1857.
Glass Hut | 
Wiibroe Beer | 
Tvede´s Factories |
The End of the Duty 1857
In order to lighten the transition from the banishment of the Sound Duty Elsinore got a special appropriation, all in all a sum of 60.000 rix-dollars, which was partly used to the support of the laying out of Marienlyst Seaside Hotel. More important was the enlargement of the harbour in 1862, at which the custom house almost symbolically disappears. With the freedom of trade law the guilds disappeared and gradually also the market town zone, which contributed to the protection of production and trade in a circumference of approximately 15 kilometres. In 1864 the north railway opened with 60.000 passengers a year and a direct link to Copenhagen via Hillerød.
The Railway Station | 
The North Railway | 
The North Railway |
Stagnation
In spite of these enterprises there was a decline in industry and the increase in the industry census until 1975 was very modest. At this time there were 37 businesses with a total of 478 employees, corresponding to approximately 5% of the labour force. The increase happened in the provision business (spirits, beer, margarine). In the town centre the predominant business were smaller trade businesses.
Even though Elsinore, apart from Copenhagen was the most important industrial town in Zealand, it was still very modest and towards the end of the 1870´s the development stagnated.
This could be linked to the dominant trade life of the town concentrated its efforts on increasing its trade by sea and therefore invested large sums in trade ships, mostly sailing ships. When the steamships gained ground it turned out to be a bad investment, moreover, the development also resulted in fewer ships berthed at Elsinore, and that caused an important basis of the town’s trade life disappeared.
The harbour enlargement in 1862 was not comprehensive enough and plans to make Elsinore an emporium for the Baltic Sea trade did not come off. Around 1889 the town with its 8.978 (1906: 14.534) inhabitants was in fact declining.
The Skipbuilding Yard 1882
Not until 1882, when the Elsinore Iron Ship and Machine Yard was built, the development started to turn and from then on a real industrial breakthrough was happening. The laying out with Mads Holm in the front brought with it large investments, increased mechanization and a large need for manpower. Around 700 workers were employed in the enterprise, of these approximately 300 from abroad.
The harbour was enlarged once again and in 1883 the first new ship was launched, the propeller steamship S/S Elsinore and with it approximately 1000 employees and many subcontractors the shipyard became the dominant factor in the economical development of the town towards the 1880´s.
The Harbour | 
Elsinore Shipyard | 
Workers from the Shipyard’s Forge | 
Kierulf´s Iron Foundry | 
Elsinore Weaving Mill |
Oversæt |
Infrastructure
Another important factor concerning the industrial revolution was the establishment of infrastructure, which connected North Zealand to the metropolitan area. The sea route was there, of course, but in 1864 the north railway was opened with connection to Copenhagen via Hillerød. The transportation of goods from the terminus to the town centre was done via a horse drawn line and from this the name “Trækbanen”.
Out of fear of competition from the capital there was local resistance against the establishment of the North railway and the Coast railway, which was opened in 1897. With the opening of the Hornbæk railway in 1906 a substantial improvement of the area’s infrastructure was the result with better connections to the surrounding area, among other things cloth is transported from Hellebæk, tile from Ålsgårde and paper from Havreholm. The transport development was to some extent also a result of the transformation of the area to a recreational area for the metropolitan region. And to some extent, this is still the case.
The sea trade´s fear that the new communications would certain parts of the trade transport was well-founded and with the final lifting of protection zones around the market town in 1920, the time where obstacles were put in the way of the free trade, was finally over.
Around the turn of the century the most important factors for the industrial development was provided: First of all with the establishment of the shipyard, the necessary capital and investments and labour, which also came to the town, an extension of the infrastructure and the lifting of earlier days´ restrictions on production and trade. With the establishment of Elsinore Technical School in 1885, a modern education of the work force was also begun.
The New Station for the Coast Railway | 
Oversæt | 
Oversæt | 
The Railway Terrain |
The Development of the Trade Union Movement
With the beginning industrialization and the removal of the guilds the first attempt to establish a trade union was made in Elsinore. The first attempts took place inside the earlier guild-organized skilled trades in the beginning of the 1870´s, but the economic decline around 1876 stopped further developments. The first lasting unionisation took place among the printers in 1881 and in connection with the establishment of the shipyard there were other efforts. An economic crisis in the middle of the 1880´s brought about another setback, but the establishment of the Social Democratic Society in the summer of 1885, the Union of Smiths and Mechanics in 1887 and the Common Union and Workers´ Society in Elsinore of 1888, became the basis of a more lasting and united organisation.
It is evident that the changing market conditions, especially for the shipbuilding business, had a great impact on the development. This was also evident into the 1890´s and not until the middle of the 1890´s the cooperative union carried through agreements for several of the trades in the shipyard.
In 1892 the gardener Christian Hansen was elected to the town council as the first Social Democratic council member in the country and in 1894 the Social Democrats had three members elected to the town council through a joint electoral list with the Venstre-party.
Agreements and Conflicts
A final arrangement about the entering of agreements was not reached until 1896, after a comprehensive union conflict in the shipyard. It started with the lockout of the riveters and involved 900 employees. It was a major conflict according to the times, and it took a fortnight of negotiations to reach an agreement about a wage increase and a three-year agreement and the establishment of a fixed negations system, where the cooperative union negotiated on the behalf of the trades.
The negotiation results of the shipyard and their wage rates became pacesetting, but in 1899 an extensive and 3 months long conflict broke out in Elsinore, but it did not include the shipyard. The Cooperative Union had effortlessly negotiated an agreement, which involved the reduction of the working hours from 60 to 58 hours and abolished the hated fine system, which was in the shipyard’s working regulations. In 1888 the town only had 7 trade unions with less than 300 members. Around the turn of the century there were 32 unions with approximately 1800 members.
The Conditions of Life
Around the turn of the century a worker made around 15-20 kroner a week. In itself that does not say much, but unfortunately there are no surveys from Elsinore concerning the budgets and conditions of life of working families. If you compare to other places in the country, it is plausible that 25% of the income went to house rent and the rest went to food, fuel and clothes in that order.
Money was scarce and in addition they had to pay for insurance against illness, death and burial. Apart from the poor-law authorities and a pension reform in 1891 the public security system did not exist and it became an important task for the labour movement to deal with these things – also locally. In that connection they established a sick-benefit association in 1892 for the members of the
Cooperative Union.
The Cooperation
A method to reduce expenses in the daily necessities and deprive the capitalists of their dominant influence on production lies in the cooperative idea. The farmer’s cooperatives from the 1889´s, which were inspired by the English workers´ cooperative wholesale societies, could have been the inspiration, but the cooperative idea has deep roots in the labour movement. In short, the idea was by producing jointly, buying and distributing different goods and services, they were able to do it as cheaply as possible, without the expensive intermediaries and to the good of all.
The first example of cooperative wholesale in Elsinore was the establishment of “the Workers´ Coal Supplies” in 1892, but later many initiatives came along for cooperative operations and social security. |