Johan Sverdrup

Johan Sverdrup (30 July 1816 – 17 February 1892) was a Norwegian politician from the Liberal Party. He was the first Prime Minister of Norway after the introduction of parliamentarism. Sverdrup was Prime Minister from 1884 to 1889.

Early years

He was born in Sem, close to Norway's oldest city, Tønsberg. His father was a pioneer in scientific agriculture in Norway. He finished his law studies in 1841. The year before he had his debut as a mountaineer and climbed Norway's eighth highest mountain, Surtningssui, and thereby becoming for a short period the Norwegian who had been at the highest point in the country. His remarkable feat was his sole first climb.

He worked as a lawyer in Larvik, a small town on the west coast of the Oslofjord. In 1851 he was for the first time elected to the Storting, and from then until his appointment as Prime Minister in 1884, he was one of the leaders of parliament. In Norway, political parties were considered inappropriate and unwanted. Sverdrup tried from his earliest days in the Storting to form a radical party consisting of the large group of peasants and the radical elements among the representatives from the cities. His first attempt was named the "lawyers' party" after the profession of the leaders of the group. It soon became evident that the times were not ripe for such a radical novelty, and for the next years Sverdrup knit a loose alliance with the peasant leader, Ole Gabriel Ueland.