Ole Christopher Wessel (12 January 1744 – 26 December 1794) was a Norwegian jurist, civil servant and landowner. He lived in Denmark-Norway. He was born in

Vestby Vestby is a municipality in Akershus county, Norway. It is part of the Follo traditional region. The administrative centre of the municipality is the village of Vestby. General information Name The municipality (originally the parish) is nam ...

Akershus Akershus () is a county in Norway, with Oslo as its administrative centre, though Oslo is not located within Akershus. Akershus has been a region in Eastern Norway with Oslo as its main city since the Middle Ages, and is named after the Akers ...

as the son of parish priest Jonas Wessel (1707-1785) and Helene Marie Schumacher (1715-1789). He was a brother of poet

Johan Herman Wessel Johan Herman Wessel (6 October 1742 – 29 December 1785) was an 18th-century Danish-Norwegian poet, satirist and playwright. His written work was characterized by the use of parody and satiric wit. Biography Wessel was born and raised at Ve ...

and cartographer

Caspar Wessel Caspar Wessel (8 June 1745 – 25 March 1818) was a Danish– Norwegian mathematician and cartographer. In 1799, Wessel was the first person to describe the geometrical interpretation of complex numbers as points in the complex plane and vector ...

. In 1757, he entered Christiania Cathedral School after which he was enrolled at the

University of Copenhagen The University of Copenhagen (, KU) is a public university, public research university in Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark. Founded in 1479, the University of Copenhagen is the second-oldest university in Scandinavia, after Uppsala University. ...

. In 1770, he received the job of assessor and rose through the ranks via Court of Justice, until he in 1790 was Chief Justice. He was married to Helene Carlsen Barclay from 1779 to 1790. They parted in 1790 and in 1791 he married Maren Juel (1749-1815), Norway's wealthiest woman, and thus became owner of the estates Hafslund Manor and Borregaard Manor in

Sarpsborg Sarpsborg ( or ), historically Borg, is a List of cities in Norway, city and Municipalities of Norway, municipality in Østfold Counties of Norway, county, Norway. The administrative centre of the municipality is the city of Sarpsborg. Sarpsbor ...

as well as Stubljan in Nordstrand.

References

1744 births 1794 deaths People from Vestby Norwegian jurists Norwegian civil servants People educated at Oslo Cathedral School University of Copenhagen alumni Norwegian landowners Jurists from Denmark–Norway {{Norway-gov-bio-stub