Swedish Connection
Kenny MacAskill tells the story of William Chalmers and the deep Scots-Swede connection
WHEN my son went to study in Gothenburg, Sweden’s second city, I in turn learned of the city’s extensive links with Scotland and the important role of the son of an emigrant Scot, William Chalmers.
Visiting often, I got to know the city well. The links with Scotland were natural in many ways – the city sits on an archipelago and its waters lead into the North Sea with Scotland just across the water.
Founded as a trading port by King Gustavus Adolphus in 1621 with primarily Dutch links, other peoples were soon to follow and many of them would be Scots. Soldiers and adventurers, fishermen and traders, would all criss-cross the seas to forge those links.
So many, in fact, that it’s suggested that the rolling “R” in certain regional accents was introduced by those Scots. There are also many similarities in the language, as words like “bairn” for a child is “barn” in Swedish.
My son attended the University of Gothenburg, but the city has a second higher education establishment, with another Scottish link.
As in the Scottish capital, which has Edinburgh University and Heriot Watt, Gothenburg has the university that bears the city’s name, and another called the Chalmers University of Technology.
As with Heriot Watt, this other establishment began and remained more focused on science and technology than the arts and social sciences. The institution still possesses a central site in an older part of the city.
As the name also suggests, the university has a Scottish legacy. Chalmers is a
“weel kent” Scottish name with instances found in place names and throughout history. Edinburgh and Banff both still have a Chalmers Hospital, provided generations ago by different merchants, George and Alexander respectively.
The Gothenburg Chalmers legacy was bequeathed by William Chalmers whose father, bearing the same name, emigrated to Sweden in the early 1700s.
William was born in Gothenburg on November 13, 1748, with his father having married a Swedish lady, Inga Orre. There were four sons and although all were born across the North Sea, they were each given Scots names. William was followed by his brothers James, George, Andreas and Charles.
It is not known if William senior left Scotland as a result of the Jacobite wars. Many supporters of both the Old and Young Pretender fled across the water to Sweden and beyond, realising there was little future for them in Scotland.
If William was one of them, he seems to have hedged his bets – his offspring’s names are divided equally between Stuart and Hanoverian monarchs.
“Many water” Jacobites fled across the
William may have been born a Swede, but his Scottish traits ran deep. Education and learning were pursued initially in Gothenburg and then in England.
Travel to broaden his horizons was also conducted in Holland and France. His studies in what appears to have been an early form of commerce and marketing theories were soon put into practice.
Initially he worked in his home city, which was continuing to flourish and expand, but soon more exotic locations beckoned. The Swedish East India Company had been formed in Gothenburg in 1731. Copying the earlier English and Dutch models, it was seen as a chance for the Scandinavian country to access Far East trade.
One of the founding fathers was another Scottish exile, John Campbell, who’d crossed the waters at roughly the same time as William’s father – perhaps explaining the invitation, as the community often looked after its own.
The young William benefited from the opportunity, being appointed director for Canton and Macau in 1783.
He returned to Sweden after 10 years – and with a newly amassed fortune in tow – to continue business interests with the construction of the Trollhätte Canal connecting the Gota River, upon which Gothenburg also stands, with the Vanern Lake.
That infrastructure further opened up trade for the city and other areas, with lands both near and far. Those activities earned him further riches, in addition to his already considerable wealth acquired in the Far East.
Dying on July 3, 1811, aged 62, the legacy he left was significant. Half of his fortune was set aside for the provision of the Sahlgrenska Hospital. Unlike George or Alexander in Scotland, his name doesn’t live on in a medical facility, but it does in an educational establishment.
After other donations, the rest of his fortune was used to establish a craft school for poor children. There they could learn to read and write, and no doubt also acquire some trade skills.
In 1829, almost two decades after his death, that school became a college, “Chalmersska Slojdeskolan”. Carl Palmstedt, a renowned chemist and industrialist was the first president of the school, but it was to bear the name of the man revered as its founder.
As with Heriot Watt, it has since grown and transformed into a prestigious university with an enviable and well-deserved international reputation.
But it’s still run by the foundation established centuries ago by that son of an emigrant Scot and the university seal still bears his crest.
“That infrastructure city” opened up the