Johan Carl Kempe (8 December 1884 – 8 July 1967) was leader of the

Swedish Swedish or ' may refer to: Anything from or related to Sweden, a country in Northern Europe. Or, specifically: * Swedish language, a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Sweden and Finland ** Swedish alphabet, the official alphabet used by ...

pulp and paper industry The pulp and paper industry comprises companies that use wood as raw material and produce pulp, paper, paperboard and other cellulose-based products. Manufacturing process The pulp is fed to a paper machine where it is formed as a paper web an ...

Mo och Domsjö AB (now Holmen Group) and involved in several other companies in the large economic sphere of the Kempe family. He was also a silver medalist in tennis at the

1912 Summer Olympics The 1912 Summer Olympics ( sv, Olympiska sommarspelen 1912), officially known as the Games of the V Olympiad ( sv, Den V olympiadens spel) and commonly known as Stockholm 1912, were an international multi-sport event held in Stockholm, Sweden, be ...

Stockholm Stockholm () is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in Sweden by population, largest city of Sweden as well as the List of urban areas in the Nordic countries, largest urban area in Scandinavia. Approximately 980,000 people liv ...

.Carl Kempe
Swedish Olympic Committee

Biography

Carl Kempe was born at Jakobs församling in

, Sweden. He was the son of industrialist Frans Kempe (1847-1924) and Eva Charlotta Kempe ( Treffenberg). He finished secondary school at

Norra Latin Norra Latin is the familiar Swedish name of a historic Stockholm school more properly known as ''Högre allmänna läroverket för gossar å Norrmalm'' ("public senior secondary school for boys at Norrmalm"). Completed in 1880, for over a hun ...

in Stockholm, studied at

Uppsala University Uppsala University ( sv, Uppsala universitet) is a public university, public research university in Uppsala, Sweden. Founded in 1477, it is the List of universities in Sweden, oldest university in Sweden and the Nordic countries still in opera ...

1903–1905 and started to work for

Mo och Domsjö Holmen AB is a Swedish company which bases its business in the forest industry and the pulp and paper industry. Holmen's main products are paperboard for consumer packaging and graphical applications. Printing paper for magazines, supplement (publ ...

in 1906. His father had been employed by the family company since 1875, became its managing director in 1884 and chairman of the board in 1908. During this period, the company expanded sharply and acquired other operations with sawmills and forest land. In 1903, the first pulp factory Mo och Domsjö opened in at Domsjö in

Örnsköldsvik Örnsköldsvik (, ) is a locality and the seat of Örnsköldsvik Municipality in Västernorrland County, Sweden, with 32,953 inhabitants in 2017. Its natural harbour and archipelago is in the Gulf of Bothnia and the northern boundaries of the Hig ...

. During the first decades of the 20th century, pulp mills were established in

Hörnefors Hörnefors () is a locality situated in Umeå Municipality, Västerbotten County Västerbotten County ( sv, Västerbottens län) is a county or ''län'' in the north of Sweden. It shares the borders with the counties of Västernorrland, Jämtla ...

and

Husum Husum (, frr, Hüsem) is the capital of the ''Kreis'' (district) Nordfriesland in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany. The town was the birthplace of the novelist Theodor Storm, who coined the epithet "the grey town by the sea". It is also the home of ...

. Carl Kempe had studied abroad and followed his father on business trips in foreign countries. He succeeded his father as CEO of Mo och Domsjö in 1917. The company he took over from his father had retained many traits of a traditional

lumber Lumber is wood that has been processed into dimensional lumber, including beams and planks or boards, a stage in the process of wood production. Lumber is mainly used for construction framing, as well as finishing (floors, wall panels, wi ...

producer. During the 1920s, technical advances in the wood industry had begun and were carried out on a large scale. Chemical laboratories were established and extensive wood research was initiated. Through large investments in research and development, Carl Kempe was chiefly responsible for its transformation into a modern

chemical industry The chemical industry comprises the companies that produce industrial chemicals. Central to the modern world economy, it converts raw materials (oil, natural gas, air, water, metals, and minerals) into more than 70,000 different products. The ...

. Kempe himself claimed that he spent his time at university in Uppsala mostly with playing tennis, attending dancing lessons and playing cards; the first of these pastimes, at least, led to his winning a

tennis Tennis is a racket sport that is played either individually against a single opponent ( singles) or between two teams of two players each ( doubles). Each player uses a tennis racket that is strung with cord to strike a hollow rubber ball ...

silver medal at the

in the men's indoor doubles event together with

Gunnar Setterwall Carl Gunnar Emanuel Setterwall (18 August 1881 – 26 February 1928) was a Swedish tennis player who won four Olympic medals. In 1908, he won a bronze in the men's indoor doubles, with Wollmar Boström. Four years later, he won three more me ...

(1881-1928). Ekolsund 2

In 1917, Carl Kempe bought Ekolsund Manor at

Enköping Municipality Enköping Municipality (''Enköpings kommun'') is a municipality in Uppsala County in east central Sweden. Its seat is located in the city of Enköping. The present municipality consists of nearly forty original local government units. They were ...

in Uppsala County. During the period 1928–1930, he had the southern lane restored and modernized according to drawings by actor, art director and architect

Vilhelm Bryde Vilhelm Bryde (8 April 1888 – 24 April 1974) was a Swedish actor, film producer, and art director. Biography From 1909 to 1911, he was a student at Dramaten. Bryde was an actor at Svenska Teatern in Stockholm (1913-1919). He was director of t ...

(1888-1974). The estate was used as a residence for his family. He had shown an interest in Chinese art since the 1920s and filled the manor house with Chinese artifacts. Shortly before his death in 1967, Kempe left Ekolsund to the daughters of his second marriage.

Personal life

Carl Kempe married Helfrid Ingeborg Margareta Hammarberg (1885-1975) in 1919. He was married in 1934 to Aagot Marianne Axell. He was the father of five children. He died during 1967 at Enköping in

Uppsala County Uppsala County ( sv, Uppsala län) is a county or ''län'' on the eastern coast of Sweden, whose capital is the city of Uppsala. It borders the counties of Dalarna, Stockholm, Södermanland, Västmanland, Gävleborg, and the Baltic Sea. Prov ...

References

Bibliography

*Gunnar Unger, "Kempe, Johan Carl", ''Svenskt biografiskt lexikon'', Vol. 21 (1975–1977), pp. 58–60External links
Holmen Group website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kempe, Carl 1884 births 1967 deaths Businesspeople from Stockholm 20th-century Swedish businesspeople Swedish industrialists Tennis players from Stockholm Swedish male tennis players Olympic tennis players of Sweden Tennis players at the 1912 Summer Olympics Olympic silver medalists for Sweden Olympic medalists in tennis Medalists at the 1912 Summer Olympics

Biography

Personal life

See also

References

Bibliography