Sigrid Björkegren (1845–1936), was a Swedish shipowner.Sigrid Magdalena Lovisa Björkegren, http://www.skbl.se/sv/artikel/SigridMagdalenaLovisaBjorkegren, Svenskt kvinnobiografiskt lexikon (artikel av Linus Karlsson), hämtad 2020-07-12. She was born to the mayor of Simrishamn, Folke Kraak, and Catharina Elisabeth Werngren. In 1866, she married the shipowner Johan Daniel Björkegren. They had two daughters and one son. During her marriage, she was an active business partner of her spouse. She managed the Björkegren Shipping Line after the death of her spouse in 1898 until 1916. It was the biggest sailing shipping line in Sweden at the time. She also took over the Chairmanship of the AB Njord Insurance company. At the time when she took over the company, the

Sailing ship A sailing ship is a sea-going vessel that uses sails mounted on masts to harness the power of wind and propel the vessel. There is a variety of sail plans that propel sailing ships, employing square-rigged or fore-and-aft sails. Some ships ...

s were declining on favor of the Steamboat, and Sigrid Björkegren gradually decreased the sail ships. However the sailing ships in the form of

barque A barque, barc, or bark is a type of sailing vessel with three or more masts having the fore- and mainmasts rigged square and only the mizzen (the aftmost mast) rigged fore and aft. Sometimes, the mizzen is only partly fore-and-aft rigged, b ...

experienced a great revival during the

Second Boer War The Second Boer War ( af, Tweede Vryheidsoorlog, , 11 October 189931 May 1902), also known as the Boer War, the Anglo–Boer War, or the South African War, was a conflict fought between the British Empire and the two Boer Republics (the South ...

, which greatly benefitted her company.

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

created difficulties in the shipping business, and Sigrid Björkegren, who was a pacifist and was deeply affected when one of her ships was sunk with 13 casualties in 1915, chose to discontinue the company despite it still being prosperous at the time, and retire.

References

Further reading