Broder Knud Brodersen Wigelsen

Broder Knud Brodersen Wigelsen (29 June 1787 10 September 1867) was an officer in the Royal Danish-Norwegian navy at the time of the gunboat war with Britain. After the war he served in various capacities, principally in the Danish customs service.

Family influences

Broder Knud Brodersen Wigelsen was born on 29 June 1787 in the town of Aalborg where his father, Hans Wigelsen, was a prominent merchant and also justice of the peace and mayor. His mother was Marie Elisabeth née Thygesen.Tom Brondsted genealogy website
/ref>Projekt Runeberg - DBL

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Wigelsen's father, Hans, had taken over the business of his father-in-law at "Lybækkergården", on Østerågade in 1784 renaming it "Wigelsen & sons" which became one of the leading establishments in Aalborg. Until the loss of Norway in 1814 (Treaty of Kiel) and Denmark's state bankruptcy, the firm operated its own ships, or those of its partners, trading foodstuffs, corn, soap and candles to Norway, returning to Aalborg with timber, iron and glass. With privately kitted out ships after the Danish Privateer Regulations of 1807 several British and Swedish (merchant) ships were captured.

Broder Wigelsen married in 1809, in Norway, Karen Magdalene Fangen - the daughter of an infantry captain.Topsøe-Jensen Vol 2 page 700 - Wigelsen Of the couple's eleven children, five died in infancy.

Naval career

As a volunteer cadet from the age of ten, Wigelsen was formally enrolled as a cadet from 1799 and on 6 July 1804 commissioned as a junior lieutenant.

After some service in the home fleet he sailed with the frigate ''Diana'' , commanded by Sigvart Akeleyeto, to the West Indies in 1805. During this voyage ''Diana'' captured the British privateer ''Kent'' of London. returning to Denmark in August 1806.

From 1807 (after the battle of Copenhagen) to 1810 Wigelsen was second in command of the brig ''Lougen'' in Norwegian waters. His ship was involved in action against a British brig later identified as HMS ''Childers'', on 14 March 1808, and he participated in the capture, on 19 June 1808, of the British brig ''Seagull''.

Lieutenant Wigelsen took command of ''Seagull'' and recorded in his personal diary:

Promoted to senior lieutenant on 9 October 1809, Wigelsen commanded the three Norwegian gunboats (''Valkyrien'', ''Nornen'', and ''Axel Thorsen'') that accompanied ''Lougen'' and ''Langeland'' in Müller's Finnmark squadron, re-establishing the pomor trade routes of the far north that had been interdicted by British naval activity. The squadron took eleven merchant ships as prizes during this 1810 season.

From 1811 to 1814 he commanded squadrons of gunboats in the Kattegat, initially four gunboats stationed at Grenaa, and capturing the British brig HMS Safeguard ( listed here) on 29 June 1811 which was towed into Udbyhoj at the exit from Randers fjord

On New Year's Eve of 1811 he received urgent orders to proceed immediately to Ryssensten Strand (north of Ringkøbing, on the west coast of Jutland) to take charge of operations centring on the wrecks of the two British warships, ''St George'' and ''Defence'', which had been driven aground on 24 December 1811. Acting as the Receiver of Wreck, he submitted his report from the nearby manor house of Rammegaard on 10 February 1812.

Returning to the Kattegat, Wigelsen became acting head of the gunboat flotilla based on the island of Samsøe while his superior officer Jørgen Conrad de Falsen was on sick leave, recovering from wounds received the year before in an unsuccessful attack on a convoy off Hjelm.For much of this period the gunboats may have been frozen in, and the crews on winter furlough. Falsen returned to duty on 6 April 1812. Wigelsen was then ordered to Grenaa where he now commanded a force of eight gunboats. This force, together with the gunboat flotilla from Samsøe under Falsen, took the action to the British on 18–19 August when the brig was captured for the Danish navy.Topsøe-Jensen Vol 1 page 354 - FalsenBoth Falsen and Wigelsen were senior lieutenants, but Falsen held seniority by 22 months and is thus credited with the capture. The gunboat flotilla from Fladstrand was also involved in the actions of 18–19 August.

Wigelsen and his gunboats continued to annoy British vessels in the Kattegat. When Wigelsen received intelligence that the British were planning an attack in overwhelming force to destroy his squadron, he ordered all his gunboats to evacuate to Kalundborg in January 1814.

Wigelsen was created a Knight in the Order of the Dannebrog in 1811 and was awarded the Cross of Honour in 1812.

After the war

From 3 April 1814 he was given leave of absence to deal with some family problems. (His father had died in 1813).
As hostilities ended Wigelsen sought early release from his naval duties which was granted with the promotion to lieutenant-captain, but without a pension. For several years he assumed the direction of the trading company founded by his father. Until 1817 the firm appeared profitable, but a series of accidents where ships were lost and their insurance companies failed could not be overcome and the once highly successful company of Wigelsen & sons had to be wound up in, or about, 1824.

Ten years after leaving the Danish navy in 1815 Wigelsen was appointed marine surveyor (Skibsmaaler) to the Royal Danish Navy in Copenhagen.

From 1832 he was appointed in a supernumerary position as inspector of the Customs and Excise department and a position on the committee of the Royal Assurance Company of Copenhagen. In 1837 he achieved further promotion to full captain. In 1838 he became a deputy in the Assurance company, and from 1841 until he retired in 1851 he was again in the customs service, latterly stationed in Roskilde.

The reorganisation of the whole of the Danish customs service in 1851 abolished his post. Wigelsen retired, this time with a pension.

Death

Wigelsen died on 10 September 1867 in Copenhagen and is buried in Holmens cemetery.

Notes

References

Citations (in Danish)

Fra Krigens Tid
(From the wartime 1807–1814) edited by N A Larsen, Christiana 1878
*Projekt Runeberg - Dansk Biografisk Lexikon Vol XVIII page 569
*T. A. Topsøe-Jensen og Emil Marquard (1935) “Officerer i den dansk-norske Søetat 1660-1814 og den danske Søetat 1814-1932“. (Danish Naval Officers) Two volumes.

{{DEFAULTSORT:Wigelsen, Broder Knud Brodersen
1787 births
1867 deaths
19th-century Danish naval officers
Danish military commanders of the Napoleonic Wars
Royal Dano-Norwegian Navy personnel
Knights of the Order of the Dannebrog
Recipients of the Cross of Honour of the Order of the Dannebrog
People from Aalborg
Danish diarists
Danish Customs Service personnel