C. J. Hambro

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

C. J. Hambro
Olav Oksvik
Peder Leier Jacobsen
Preceded byGunnuf Eiesland
Succeeded byAlv Kjøs
Personal details
Born(1885-01-05)5 January 1885
United Kingdoms of Sweden and Norway
Died15 December 1964(1964-12-15) (aged 79)
Oslo, Norway
Political partyConservative
Spouse(s)Gudrun Greig (?–1943, her death)
Gyda Christensen (1946–1964, his death)
Children3
OccupationJournalist, author and politician

Carl Joachim Hambro (5 January 1885 – 15 December 1964) was a Norwegian journalist, author and leading

UN General Assembly (1945–1956) and member of the Norwegian Nobel Committee
(1940–1963).

Personal life

Carl Joachim Hambro's lineage can be traced back to

Jewish. The family member Calmer Joachim Hambro (1747–1806) relocated to Copenhagen in the late 18th century, and became a businessman. One of his sons, Joseph Hambro, moved on to London and founded Hambros Bank with his son Carl Joachim Hambro. Another son (and Joseph's brother) Edvard Isaach Hambro (1782–1865) moved to Bergen, Norway where he became a merchant in the early 19th century. Edvard Isaach Hambro fathered Carl Joachim Hambro (1813–1873), who in turn fathered the school manager Edvard Isak Hambro (1847–1909).[1]

Hambro was born in Bergen to Edvard Isak Hambro and

Edvard Bull, Sr., Johan Peter Bull and Francis Bull.[2]

From June 1910, Hambro was married to Gudrun "Dudu" Grieg (1881–1943), daughter of a priest.

Carl Joachim Hambro and Johan Randulf Bull Hambro and one daughter; all born between 1911 and 1915. Through Edvard, he was also grandfather to Christian Hambro.[1] Three years after his wife died, in February 1946, Hambro married actress Gyda Christensen (1872–1964) whom he had befriended in 1918.[2]

Early career

Hambro attended the middle school and high school his father had founded in Bergen. He took the

cand.mag. degree in 1907.[3]

He was involved in the

Football Association of Norway.[2][3]

After graduating from the university, he was a teacher at Kristiania Commerce School (1907) and Vestheim School (1908–1912). In 1913 he became chief editor of the conservative newspaper Morgenbladet, a post he held until 1919. He then focused on pursuing a political career, having been elected in the autumn of 1918. He returned to the press as editor of the magazine Ukens Revy from 1921 to 1929.[2][3]

Ukens Revy had been distinctively pro-German and anti-British during the First World War.[4] During the war, Hambro got entangled in British affairs. In January 1917, the United Kingdom had ceased its coal exports to Norway. During the negotiations between Knudsen's Cabinet's representatives and the British legation in Kristiania, Hambro wrote an editorial in Morgenbladet which suggested expulsion of the British diplomats if Norwegian needs were not met. British Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour met with the Norwegian ambassador in the UK, and demanded that Knudsen's Cabinet either deplore Morgenbladet's statements or prosecute Hambro legally. Hambro's actions were defended by the Norwegian parliamentary opposition, including the Conservative Party. After some rounds of talks and negotiations, the whole case blew over.[5] In the first phase of the First World War, Hambro had campaigned restlessly against Knudsen's Cabinet which he perceived as too weak to lead the country through a war. Hambro and Morgenbladet was joined in this endeavor by Tidens Tegn and to an extent Aftenposten. Prime Minister Gunnar Knudsen summoned a sitdown of himself and the three newspaper's editors, where he tried to calm their attacks. "The attempt failed completely", notes historian Hans Fredrik Dahl.[6]

Hambro also marked himself as a critic of socialism. He reacted strongly against the

antimilitaristic policies of the socialists in Norway, and called for reactions against those who spread such "contamination" in print.[7] In 1918, in the wake of the Russian Revolution, Hambro suggested that the revolutionary socialist press be met with harsher regulations. He wrote in Morgenbladet: "Perhaps our authorities should be more attentive towards the socially subversive agitation long practiced by our socialist leaders in writing and speech".[8] On the other hand, he also criticized cases of actual censorship directed towards the workers' movement, among others during the secret military expedition to quell calamities in Rjukan in May 1914.[9]

He chaired the boards of the

Nationaltheatret.[10]

Political career

Hambro had settled in Kristiania (Oslo), and in 1908 he became a board member of the Conservative Party there. He was selected as a member of Kristiania's school board in 1913. In 1921 he advanced to chairman, a post he held until 1923.[3]

In the

Parliament of Norway in that single-member constituency.[3] He was nominated as the party's candidate in Uranienborg as a compromise candidate between the agrarian-conservative wing of Jens Bratlie and the liberal wing of Fredrik Stang, Nils Yngvar Ustvedt and Edvard Hagerup Bull (Bratlie, Stang and Ustvedt were former MPs from Uranienborg).[11] Hambro received 14,501 votes, and thus won a landslide victory. The closest runner-up was G. E. Stubberød of Labour, who tallied only 1,504 votes.[12]

After the change to plural-member constituencies Hambro was re-elected to Parliament from the constituency Kristiania in 1921, and, after it changed its name to Oslo, in 1924, 1927, 1930, 1933, 1936, 1945, 1949 and 1953. He was a member of Parliament from 1919 to 1957; amounting to ten consecutive terms in total (the 1940 election was called off because of World War II).[3]

Hambro served as

Versailles Treaty did not create decent grounds for such an international organization.[2] He chaired the Standing Committee on Foreign and Constitutional Affairs from 1925 to 1945, and was then a member from 1945 to 1957. From 1945 to 1957 he was also a member of the Enlarged Committee on Foreign and Constitutional Affairs. In the Election Committee of the Parliament, he was the chairman from 1928 to 1945 and deputy chairman from 1945 to 1957.[3]

Hambro served as acting party chairman in 1926, and party chairman from 1928 to 1934 and 1945 to 1954. He was also a central board member from 1934 to 1964.[3] He was never a member of any government, despite that his party formed several cabinet during his parliamentary tenure. He instead chose to work as chairman of his party as well as its parliamentary group; the two posts had actually become open to him when Ivar Lykke chose to form his cabinet in 1926.[2]

As president of the

Odelsting in 1956, Hambro spoke out against the repeal of the Jesuit clause
, which had banned them from the country since 1814:

It must be remembered that neither Nazism in Germany, Fascism in Italy, Rexism in Belgium led by Degrelle, the Catholics' favorite disciple, Petain's movement in France, Franco's movement in Spain would have been possible without the support and active collaboration of the Jesuits. Those who have retained any impression of Hitler's Mein Kampf will also have a strong impression of how much he had learned from Jesuitism, and how highly he valued its organization and its teachings. There are few things he has expressed more directly.

— C. J. Hambro[14]

Views

Hambro was known as a

Fedrelandslaget, which was vying for conservative support, in their nationalism. In the so-called "Greenland Question", he arbitrated with Denmark in 1923–1924 when Denmark claimed sovereignty over Greenland, and had meant that Denmark acted unjustified. However, when forces in and outside of the then-Agrarian government annexed "Erik the Red's Land" in 1931, Hambro was strictly against it. The Agrarian Party revenged itself on Hambro by voting him down as President of the Parliament in 1934,[2] but Hambro won support from the adversaries in the Labour Party to regain the post. He nurtured a personal friendship with figures such as the Labour Party's foremost politician, Johan Nygaardsvold.[15]

Despite his family's Jewish roots, Hambro was a Christian. He more or less adhered to the views of the Oxford Group, without being an actual member of this group.[2] He famously invited the Oxford Group's founder, Frank Buchman, and a large party of Oxford Group members to Norway in 1934 where they led a massive campaign for "a Christian revolution" leading to a kind of "national awakening" credited with strengthening Norwegian spirit of resistance during World War II.[16]

Role in World War II

Hambro played a crucial role at the time of the

King Haakon and his royal family, the government, prominent members of Parliament and the gold reserves of the Bank of Norway. They all left on a train commissioned by Hambro just 30 minutes before the Germans arrived in Oslo. The Germans had then been delayed by the sinking of the German cruiser Blücher.[17]

In the days after the invasion, Hambro worked actively from Sweden's capital Stockholm to correct the image the American journalist Leland Stowe had portrayed of the situation in Norway. While in Sweden, Hambro also was instrumental in organizing the fledgling Norwegian underground resistance movement via telephone.

Post-war life

After the

Second World War, he was a delegate to the United Nations General Assembly from 1945 to 1956. He was a member of the Norwegian Nobel Committee
from 1940 to 1963.

Legacy

Hambro was a member of the

Vår Frelsers gravlund.[2]

He has a square in the centre of Oslo named after him, C. J. Hambros plass, in which are sited both the Oslo District Court and the National Authority for Investigation and Prosecution of Economic and Environmental Crime in Norway. Streets have been named after him in Heimdal and Fyllingsdalen (C. J. Hambros vei) as well as Elverum (C. J. Hambros veg).

A statue of him was erected in 1995 at the square in front of the Parliament, Eidsvolls plass.[2]

Selected works

  • I saw it happen in Norway (1941)
  • How to win the peace (1942)
  • Crossroads of conflict: European peoples and problems (1943)
  • Newspaper lords in British politics (1958)

References

  1. ^
    Store norske leksikon
    (in Norwegian). Oslo: Kunnskapsforlaget. Retrieved 29 April 2011.
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Thyness, Paul. "C J Hambro". In Helle, Knut (ed.). Norsk biografisk leksikon (in Norwegian). Oslo: Kunnskapsforlaget. Retrieved 29 April 2011.
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j "C. J. Hambro" (in Norwegian). Storting.
  4. ISBN 978-82-02-27290-6
    .
  5. ISBN 82-02-19089-4
    .
  6. ^ Dahl, 1981: p. 70
  7. ISBN 82-00-22805-3
    .
  8. ^ Dahl and Bastiansen, 2000: p. 50
  9. ^ Agøy, 1997: p. 43
  10. Bull, Edvard; Jansen, Einar (eds.). Norsk biografisk leksikon
    (in Norwegian). Vol. 4 (1st ed.). Oslo: Aschehoug. pp. 301–304.
  11. ISBN 82-03-10639-0
    .
  12. ^ "Norges Offisielle Statistikk. VI. 150. Stortingsvalget 1918" (PDF) (in Norwegian). Statistics Norway.
  13. ^ Carl Joachim Hambro, Politician, Journalist and Writer (Nobelprize.org)
  14. ^ Norderval, Øyvind. "Jesuitterparagrafens opphevelse i 1956". Den katolske kirke (in Norwegian). Retrieved 12 May 2022.
  15. ^
    ISBN 82-03-16155-3
    .
  16. ISBN 9780094666504
    , pp. 216–232.
  17. ^ Norway after 1905 (Royal Norwegian Embassy in Washington)

Bibliography

External links
Political offices
Preceded by
President of the Storting
1925–1945
(His stand-in in Norway in 1940 was Ivar Lykke
;
Hambro was in exile 1940–1945) 		Succeeded by
Preceded by President of the League of Nations
1939 		Succeeded by
N/A
Preceded by
N/A
 President of the League of Nations
1946 		Succeeded by
none
Party political offices
Preceded by Chairman of the
Norwegian Conservative Party

1926–1934 		Succeeded by
Preceded by Chairman of the
Norwegian Conservative Party

1950–1954 		Succeeded by
Media offices
Preceded by Chief editor of Morgenbladet
1913–1919 		Succeeded by
Olaf Gjærløw
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=C._J._Hambro&oldid=1194626283"