Founding days

In the spring of 1889, three gentlemen were eating lunch together in the New York Yacht Club. They were an unknown ship’s captain from Bergen, a ship captain called Peter Arnoldus Bull and Magnus Andersen – who was then running the sailors’ home in Brooklyn but who had spent a long time at sea.

Andersen told the others about his work for Norwegian sailors in the USA, and one of the others asked a bit sarcastically why he did not instead do something good for Norwegian sailors in Norway.

After thinking about this for a few days, Andersen found out that he wanted to go home. He wanted to start a newspaper for sailors. A mouthpiece for seafarers. He wanted to start Norges Sjøfartstidende.

And that’s what he did. He spent the summer planning. Andersen talked to all the ship captains that came to New York and sent circulars to those interested in the shipping industry in Norway. He outlined his «programme», which included a sailor’s pension, voting rights for seamen outside Norway, a revision of the Shipping Act and various other measures. Andersen was a man with ideas – a radical man.

He left New York in the autumn of 1889. «To my surprise, before I left I was the centre of a joyous social gathering attended by around 150 friends and acquaintances and was thereafter written about in a flattering article in ‘Nordiske Blade’», he writes in his biography entitled «70 års tilbakeblikk på mitt virke på sjø og i land» (A look back on my 70 years’ work at sea and on land). He continues: «I was even more surprised when some of those who had been at the party came to the wharf along with several others to say goodbye when I was leaving a couple of days later. These even included the Norwegian Vice Consul. That’s when it started to dawn on me that it was not the person Magnus Andersen but rather the future newspaper editor that was so attractive and, when I later became actively involved in newspaper work, I immediately became aware that both men and women in this position in life are paid attention to, usually more than most of them deserve.»

On the trip home, Andersen had second thoughts. He did not know anything about publishing a newspaper and he probably had plenty of time to think since the trip went via Liverpool, London and Antwerp. On board the D/S Alpha, he became acquainted with a fisheries inspector, Fr. Backer, who had supplied articles on the fishing industry to newspapers for many years «and thus had some knowledge of newspaper operations. He was hired as Norges Sjøfartstidende’s first permanent employee,» says Andersen.

When he arrived in Kristiania (now Oslo), he formed a publishing company and started to seriously plan Norges Sjøfartstidende. Andersen leased premises in Skippergaten 3 – where Kafe Grei is now located – and signed a printing contract with Jensen, a printer in Brogaten 3. The first edition of the newspaper was published on Wednesday, 1 January 1890. The printing arrangements were rather awkward, so he quickly got hold of an old type-setting machine and a printing press. «The printing press was extremely old, it had a large flywheel, was turned by hand and was supposed to be the oldest of its size in Norway,» wrote Andersen.

Later, the newspaper moved to Tollbodgaten 15 and, from there, to Frølichpassasjen –Kirkegaten 34 with a passage through to Prinsensgate 9. By then, Andersen had acquired a modern printing press with a gas engine a long time ago. The newspaper’s circulation had become so large that the man who turned the wheel on the old printing press had given up.

Naturally, circulation figures were just as important then as they are now, and Andersen was a creative man here too. Even in the first edition, he promised that any sailor who took out a subscription and paid for one year would receive compensation of NOK 50 if he were shipwrecked.

Norges Sjøfartstidende started up just after the Northern Shipowners’ Defence Club was formed. This Club had its headquarters in Copenhagen and this was something Andersen did not like. Norwegian shipping companies owned 70 per cent of the tonnage, while the Danish and Swedish shipping companies owned 20 per cent and 10 per cent respectively. Andersen wanted the Northern Shipowners’ Defence Club to move to Kristiania. Following an extraordinary general meeting, the relatively new editor and the Norwegian shipowners got what they wanted. According to Andersen, this was the newspaper’s first major case.

The future looked relatively bright following the first year. In 1891, the circulation had increased to 4,000 copies and the newspaper has made a profit of NOK 2 300. But it was not enough for Andersen just to be the editor. There was too much sailors’ blood in his veins. He was fascinated by Leiv Erikson’s discovery of America and the excavation of the Gokstad Viking ship. That was a mixture he could not resist. He collected money and had a copy of the Gokstad ship built in Sandefjord and named the Viking. On Sunday, 9 April 1893, the ship set sail from Honnørbryggen in Oslo and, to cut a long story short, the trip across was a success while the return journey was a tragedy.

Andersen was away from the newspaper for 10 months, and that was not a very good idea. «My long absence .. led to the Norges Sjøfartstidende company, under the management of many people, both editorially and commercially speaking, almost going bankrupt,» he wrote in his book.

Turning the newspaper around proved to be easier said than done. 1894 was a year of both political and financial adversity. Andersen believed his management of the newspaper demonstrated a «free and modern spirit», but he was accused by among others Nils Vogt, the editor of Morgenbladet, of running a covertly socialist newspaper. Even in 1891, he had brought the wrath of many conservatives down on his head by advocating the establishment of separate Norwegian consuls. He had no chance when faced with these allegations. «I had ended up on a very slippery political downhill path and, more or less against my will, I slid faster and faster downwards until I ended up right at the bottom left-hand side of the then very sharp neutrality line,» he wrote.

Gradually, the advertising orders stopped coming in and employees had to be dismissed. The crisis was acute. On Wednesday, 5 December, the newspaper was sold to the highest bidder – a consortium headed by Thomas Fearnley, a member of the Norwegian Court.

Norges Sjøfartstidende was thus history for Magnus Andersen. For us, it has hardly begun.


Stein B. Hauglid, Political Editor Dagens Næringsliv

^{Most of the information in this article has been taken from Magnus Andersen’s book entitled «70 års tilbakeblikk på mitt virke på sjø og i land» (A look back on my 70 years’ work at sea and on land), which was published by his own publishing house in connection with his 70th birthday in 1932.}