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

Copenhagen Copenhagen ( or .; da, København ) is the capital and most populous city of Denmark, with a proper population of around 815.000 in the last quarter of 2022; and some 1.370,000 in the urban area; and the wider Copenhagen metropolitan ar ...

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

Danish West Indies The Danish West Indies ( da, Dansk Vestindien) or Danish Antilles or Danish Virgin Islands were a Danish colonization of the Americas, Danish colony in the Caribbean, consisting of the islands of Saint Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands, Saint Thomas ...

with its own fleet of merchant ships. Borre owned the Irgens House at Strandgade 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. It is located on the eastern shore of Jutland in the Kattegat sea and approximately northwest ...

, 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 "relationship between an individual and a state to which the individual owes allegiance and in turn is entitled to its protection". Each state determines the conditions under which it will recognize persons as its citizens, and ...

as a merchant in

. In circa 1755, he established the trading house Borre & Fenger in a partnership with Peter Fenger. He was from 1761 to 1778 administrator of the national tobacco monopoly in return for 12.5 % of the revenues. He was from 1753 the principal participant in the General Trading Company 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 (Kgl. islandske, finmarkske og færøske handel of Fiskefangst) and Kgl. the

Royal Greenland Trading Department The Royal Greenland Trading Department ( da, Den Kongelige Grønlandske Handel, 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 177 ...

until 1779.

Property

Borre owned the Irgens House at Strandgade 44 in Christianshavn from 1851 to 1883. He expanded the complex with a new building for manufacturing tobacco towards

Wildersgade Wildersgade is a street in the Christianshavn district of Copenhagen, Denmark. It runs along the length of the neighbourhood, parallel to Christianshavn Canal, one block to the east, from the Christiansbro development in the south(west) to Wilde ...

. The warehouse at Overgaden neden Vandet 51A-B was built by Borre / Fenger in 1761-62. Borre was from 1762 also the owner of the neighbouring warehouse at No. 49 and it was after his death owned by his widow until 1802. He spent the summers in his country house Sophieshøj aat

Nærum Nærum () is a suburban district in Rudersdal Municipality in the north outskirts of Copenhagen, Denmark. Quartered by the Helsingør Motorway running north–south and Skodsborgvej running east–west, Nærum is bounded by Jægersborg Hegn on ...

Public offices and honors

Borre was from 1757 to 1776 a member of Grosserersocietetet's governing council and its president from 1762. He supported Schimmelmann's proposal about establishing a freeport in Copenhagen in 1769. He was appointed as royal agent in 1761 and as ''etatsråd'' in 1779.

Personal life

On 18 June 1751 Borre married Sophia Aagaard (1735-1778), a daughter of merchant Oluf Hansen Aaaard (1689–1749) and Anna Elisabeth Tvede (1708–47). 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 Charles August Selby (24 October 1755 – 15 March 1823) was an English- Danish merchant and landowner. He built the Bækkeskov manor house at Præstø and Orupgaard on Falster. The Baron's oldest son, the politician and landowner, Charles Borre ...

References

External links

Peter Borre
{{DEFAULTSORT:Borre, Peter 1716 births 1789 deaths 18th-century Danish businesspeople Danish slave traders