Peter Malm (22 September 1800 – 7 August 1868) was a major ship owner and merchant in

Grand Duchy of Finland The Grand Duchy of Finland was the predecessor state of modern Finland. It existed from 1809 to 1917 as an Autonomous region, autonomous state within the Russian Empire. Originating in the 16th century as a titular grand duchy held by the Monarc ...

in the 19th century, and the father of the shipping magnate Otto A. Malm.

Life

Born in Jakobstad, Malm moved to

Turku Turku ( ; ; , ) is a city in Finland and the regional capital of Southwest Finland. It is located on the southwestern coast of the country at the mouth of the Aura River (Finland), River Aura. The population of Turku is approximately , while t ...

, Finland for his studies. He worked as a merchant in

Liverpool Liverpool is a port City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. It is situated on the eastern side of the River Mersey, Mersey Estuary, near the Irish Sea, north-west of London. With a population ...

between 1818 and 1824, and opened his own business in Jakobstad in 1823. As of 1840, Malm had the largest shipping fleet in Finland, consisting of 13 sailing ships. Peter Malm was the first Finnish ship owner to send his ships on transoceanic voyages. In 1845–1847, the

barque A barque, barc, or bark is a type of sailing ship, sailing vessel with three or more mast (sailing), masts of which the fore mast, mainmast, and any additional masts are Square rig, rigged square, and only the aftmost mast (mizzen in three-maste ...

Hercules was the first Finnish ship to circumnavigate the Earth. The

Crimean War The Crimean War was fought between the Russian Empire and an alliance of the Ottoman Empire, the Second French Empire, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and the Kingdom of Sardinia (1720–1861), Kingdom of Sardinia-Piedmont fro ...

was a major setback to the business, as the British and French naval operations in the

Baltic Sea The Baltic Sea is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that is enclosed by the countries of Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Russia, Sweden, and the North European Plain, North and Central European Plain regions. It is the ...

made it virtually impossible to conduct trade. Finland was at the time an autonomous part of the Russian empire, and thus also a target of the British-French fleet during the war. Peter Malm founded a steam powered saw mill on the small island of Stockholmen outside Jakobstad in 1854, which was only the second such installation in Finland.

References

19th-century Finnish businesspeople People from Jakobstad 1800 births 1868 deaths Swedish-speaking Finns Merchants from the Russian Empire {{Finland-bio-stub