Axel Wilhelm Wahren (1814–85)
Axel Wilhelm Wahren was a Swedish businessman who developed the new industrial community of Forssa in Finland in the mid-19th century, one of the country’s earliest industrial towns. He was born into a family of merchants in Stockholm and was apprenticed in his uncle’s textile-dyeing workshop at Norrköping. At the age of 18 he began a three-year study tour to see textile industries in Sweden, Germany, Austria and other countries. For a time he managed a dyehouse in Bielitz in Austria. When he returned to Sweden in 1836 he leased his uncle’s dyeworks before deciding two years later to seek opportunities in Finland.
As a Jew, Wahren was disqualified from owning a business in Finland and so he converted to the Lutheran church. He leased a woollen mill at Jokioinen, 120 km north-west of Helsinki. He modernised the factory and diversified its products, marketing them through regional representatives so that it became the leading woollen manufacturer in Finland. At this time it was still small by international standards, with fewer than 50 workers. However, in 1847, Wahren and two partners built a new cotton-spinning factory 10 km away at Forssa with machinery and skilled workers from Britain. Within a few years he opened a dyeing plant and a steam-powered weaving mill on the same site. By 1852, the factory employed 250 people. In 1859, Wahren acquired a weaving mill at Viksberg and began exporting to Russia under the company name Forssa. In 1861, he added workshops for printing on cotton cloth. He built a hydroelectric plan in 1877 and an electric-powered railway to link the factories. As Forssa was a new settlement, he provided houses, a school, a health centre, a library and a shop.
In 1872, Wahren entered a new industry of great importance for Finland, the manufacture of wood pulp for papermaking. With partners, he founded the Kymmena company and built a wood-processing plant on the Kuusankoski rapids at Kouvola, 130km north-east of Helsinki.
In the 20th century the textile factories at Forssa became the largest in Finland under the brand Finlayson. Today Wahren’s spinning mill is a museum.
