Benjamin Wegner Nørregaard
Benjamin Wegner Nørregaard (3 October 1861 – 24 April 1935) was a Norwegian military officer,
adventurer, journalist, diplomat and internationally renowned war correspondent. He spent several years in China and served as Minister of Labour in the Tianjin Provisional Government during the Boxer Rebellion. He later worked as a war correspondent for the Daily Mail and for Scandinavian newspapers, and covered several conflicts in East Asia and Europe. He is especially known for his books The Great Siege, on the siege of Port Arthur during the Russo-Japanese War, and War, on the Boxer Rebellion.[1][2][3][4]
Career
Nørregaard graduated as an officer in 1881 and became a
Imperial Chinese Railways from 1896 to 1900. During the Boxer Rebellion in 1900, he was employed by the Allies as head of the Ministry of Labour in the Tianjin Provisional Government, which governed the major city Tianjin
and surrounding areas, a position he held from 1900 to 1902. He was also the architect of the new, monumental government building in Tianjin.
He rose to journalistic prominence as a war correspondent of the First World War, he was among the leading commentators on the ongoing war in the neutral countries.[6][7] In addition to writing on war and foreign policy, he was a food writer, and wrote humorous short stories.
He was a son of the Norwegian colonel and aide-de-camp to king Charles
Berenberg-Gossler-Seyler banking dynasty. He was a brother of the noted lawyer Harald Nørregaard and of wine merchant and consul in Tarragona Ludvig Paul Rudolf Nørregaard. He married Wilhelmine Sissenère in 1898. She was formerly married to the Norwegian cabinet minister and Director-General of the Norwegian State Railways Hans Nysom
. He had no children.
He is mentioned as a military and foreign policy commentator in First World War in the novel Lillelord by Johan Borgen.
Honours
- Tianjin Provisional Government Medalin Gold (one of only 12 issued to members of the Tianjin Provisional Government)
Works
- Benjamin Wegner Nørregaard, Port Arthurs beleiring, Aschehoug, Kristiania, 1905, 256 pages, illustrated
- Benjamin Wegner Nørregaard, The Great Siege: The Investment and Fall of Port Arthur, Methuen Publishing, 1906, 308 pages
- Benjamin Wegner Nørregaard, Krig: Skildringer og Oplevelser, Aschehoug, Kristiania, 1908, 168 pages.
References
- Store Norske Leksikon
- ^ Benjamin Wegner Nørregaard, in Norsk biografisk leksikon, Vol. 10, 1949, pp. 299–301
- ^ Benjamin Wegner Nørregaard, in Salmonsens Konversationsleksikon, 2nd ed., Vol. XVIII, p. 356
- ^ Benjamin Wegner Nørregaard, in Nordisk familjebok, 1914, vol. 20, p. 373
- ^ a b Omang, Reidar (1959), Norsk utenrikstjeneste II: Stormfulle tider 1913–28. Oslo: Gyldendal Norsk Forlag, p. 52.
- ^ Aftenposten Aften 2 October 1926 p. 2
- ^ Hvem er hvem? 1912
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