Peter Borre (2 September 1716 – 20 December 1789) was a Danish merchant and slave trader. He owned the

Copenhagen Copenhagen ( ) is the capital and most populous city of Denmark, with a population of 1.4 million in the Urban area of Copenhagen, urban area. The city is situated on the islands of Zealand and Amager, separated from Malmö, Sweden, by the ...

-based trading house ''Borre & Fenger'' in a partnership with Peter Fenger from around 1755. The company traded in the

Danish West Indies The Danish West Indies () or Danish Virgin Islands () or Danish Antilles were a Danish colony in the Caribbean, consisting of the islands of Saint Thomas with , Saint John () with , Saint Croix with , and Water Island. The islands of St ...

with its own fleet of merchant ships. Borre owned the Irgens House at

Strandgade Strandgade () is one of the principal streets in the Christianshavn district of Copenhagen, Denmark. It runs along the full length of the neighbourhood, following the waterfront of the Inner Harbour, Copenhagen, Inner Harbour, from Christian's Ch ...

44 in

as well as several other properties in the city.

Early life and education

Borre was born in

Aarhus Aarhus (, , ; officially spelled Århus from 1948 until 1 January 2011) is the second-largest city in Denmark and the seat of Aarhus municipality, Aarhus Municipality. It is located on the eastern shore of Jutland in the Kattegat sea and app ...

, the son of merchant Mikkel Pedersen Borre (1669–1724) and Anne Mogensdatter Blach (1692–1726). His maternal uncle was Oluf Blach.

Career

In 1750, Borre was granted

citizenship Citizenship is a membership and allegiance to a sovereign state. Though citizenship is often conflated with nationality in today's English-speaking world, international law does not usually use the term ''citizenship'' to refer to nationalit ...

as a merchant in

. In circa 1755, he established the trading house Borre & Fenger in a partnership with Peter Fenger. From 1761 to 1778 he was administrator of the national tobacco monopoly in return for 12.5 % of the revenues. He was the principal participant in the General Trading Company from 1753 and from 1759 served as its managing director until it was taken over by the crown in 1774. Borre then served as director of the new Royal Iceland Trading Department () and the

Royal Greenland Trading Department The Royal Greenland Trading Department (, KGH) was a Danish state enterprise charged with administering the realm's settlements and trade in Greenland. The company managed the government of Greenland from 1774 to 1908 through its Board of Manag ...

until 1779. Borre was from 1757 to 1776 a member of the Merchant Society's ( Grosserer-Societetet) governing council and its president from 1762. He supported Schimmelmann's proposal to establish a

free port A free-trade zone (FTZ) is a class of special economic zone. It is a geographic area where goods may be imported, stored, handled, manufactured, or reconfigured and re-exported under specific customs regulation and generally not subject to ...

in Copenhagen in 1769. He was appointed royal agent in 1761 and ''

etatsråd was a Danish and Norwegian title, which was conferred by the king until 1909 and entailed a third-class rank in the order of precedence, and thus the right to enroll one's daughters in Gisselfeld Convent and Vemmetofte Convent. It was awarded to ...

'' in 1779.

Property

Borre owned the Irgens House at

44 in Christianshavn from 1851 to 1883. He expanded the complex with a new building for manufacturing tobacco towards Wildersgade. The warehouse at Overgaden neden Vandet 51A-B was built by Borre & Fenger in 1761–1762. From 1762, Borre was also the owner of the neighbouring warehouse at No. 49 and after his death it was owned by his widow until 1802. He spent the summers at his country house Sophieshøj aat Nærum.

Personal life

On 18 June 1751 Borre married Sophia Aagaard (1735–1778), daughter of merchant Oluf Hansen Aaaard (1689–1749) and Anna Elisabeth Tvede (1708–1747). This made him the brother-in-law of Johan Peter Suhr and merchant and later landowner Mathias Wassard. His daughter Birgitte (1757–1809) married Charles August Selby.

References

External links

Peter Borre
{{DEFAULTSORT:Borre, Peter 1716 births 1789 deaths 18th-century Danish businesspeople Danish slave traders Merchants from Denmark–Norway