page_title: Moss Jernverk
section_title: A small society
hierarchical_section_title: Moss Jernverk / A small society
caption_attribution_description: English: Old wooden house, originally for Moss Ironworks (Moss Jernverk in Norwegian) workers in Moss, Norway. The houses are on the eastern side of the road passing through. The road was in earlier times the main road from Christiania to Gothenburg. Norsk bokmål: Gamle trehus, opprinnelig for arbeiderne ved Moss Jernverk. Husene er på østsiden av veien. Veien var opprinnelig hovedveien mellom Christiania og Gøteborg.
context_page_description: Moss Jernverk was an ironwork in Moss, Norway. Established in 1704, it was for many years the largest workplace in the city, and melted ore, chiefly from Arendalsfeltet. With power from the nearby waterfalls it manufactured many different products. From around the middle of the 1700 century the works were the leading armory in the country and produced hundreds of heavy iron cannons. The first rolling mill in Norway was also located here.
  Amongst Moss Jernverk's owners were many of Norway's best-known businessmen, including Bernt Anker and Herman Wedel-Jarlsberg. Under Anker's management it became a much visited attraction for early travellers to Norway. The administration building is best known for being the site where the Convention of Moss was negotiated in August 1814.
  In the middle of the 19th century Moss Ironworks met increased competition from Swedish and English ironworks; consequently it closed down in 1873. It was sold for 115,000 speciedaler in 1875 and the area was taken over by the company M. Peterson & Søn, which used it until it went bankrupt in 2012.
context_section_description: Moss Jernverk was a small independent society, residing north of the city of Moss. The manager was usually called steward (forvalter); the first was Niels Michelsen Thune, and his reign began at the start of the ironworks and lasted until 1716. In addition to Thune a man named Peder Windt was director in the years 1706-1708. After Thune the next steward most probably was Knud Wendelboe. He compiled several extensive reports regarding Moss Jernverk. After the auction in 1738 Jens Bondorph from Copenhagen took charge, but when Henrich Ochsen sold Moss Jernverk, the steward's name was Wichman.
  The workers at Moss Jernverk were more anonymous, but typically for the advanced technology an ironworks in that age was, most of them came from other countries – their names tell of Swedish and German origin. How important the skilled workers were for the ironworks is shown in a letter Jacob von Hübsch wrote to the king on 27 December 1719 in which he states that, as the Great Northern War still was fought and the ironworks was idle, he still had to pay his workers in order to keep them.
  In the 1730s there was a lack of skilled workers and the workers seemed to exploit that by striking and demanding higher wages during the auction in 1738. The conditions for most of the workers were all the same, poor. Carl Hübsch wrote in 1738 that Moss Jernverk did not keep any overview of the workers that built houses on their premises, as they anyway were so poor that no rent could be extracted from them.
  The society around the ironworks had a strained relationship on several levels with the city of Moss. One contested privilege was the duty-free import of food, whereas the citizens of Moss had to pay consumption tax for all goods that passed the city border. Another was the use of the water from the waterfalls and the bridge crossing the waterfalls, the maintenance of it was the responsibility of the town, which they felt was unjust. In addition to this came the jurisdiction. Moss Jernverk had the privilege to judge its workers, with the bergrett at Kongsberg as appellate court, something the local magistrate was much opposed to. In reality the cases were almost always solved locally. Two young boys that had stolen potatoes from a farm were punished by their parents by flogging in the ironworks jail, something the parents were satisfied with and further on: "humbly request that the punishment will not be extended and that the kids will be relieved of having to travel to Kongsberg to be punished there".
  The vicar Christian Grave, of Rygge and Moss, did not hold Moss Jernverk in high esteem: a statement from him in 1743 says the following:
  "At Moss City lies Mosse Jernværk owned by Hr. Stiftsamtmand Ochsen from Copenhagen, who has different from other works owner in Norway the self acquired freedom against the Oberbergamt's rules, that he no gifts give to the church."
  The ironworks also had a huge demand for unskilled labor and many women worked there, one of them was Thore Olsdatter malmkjerring (malmkjerring could be translated as ore woman) that were rolling slag, earth and charcoal for 10 shilling a day. Only regarding the church the workers were subject to the local administration. They were omitted from military service, but in times of unrest they established their own unit. In 1786 Moss Jernverk gave permission for two innkeepers to establish themselves within the premises, after strict rules and a yearly fee that were given to the poor within the ironworks. The innkeepers were forbidden to sell liqueur with mortgage in food; late night parties, card games or dance were also forbidden and the inns had to close at 10 in the evening.
  The manager Lars Semb wrote in 1809 that the school for the workers' children was established some 40 years erstwhile, around 1770. Before that time the children had attended school in the city of Moss. From other sources it is however known that Moss Jernverk as early as in 1758 employed the teacher Andreas Glafstrøm paying him 6 riksdaler a month. In 1796 the ironworks had an advertisement for a new teacher an
caption: Old wooden houses, used by workers at Moss Jernverk
exif: {"Image ImageDescription": "", "Image Make": "Canon", "Image Model": "Canon PowerShot S95", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "180", "Image YResolution": "180", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image DateTime": "2012:01:23 13:33:57", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image ExifOffset": "240", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "180", "Thumbnail YResolution": "180", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "5108", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "4983", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/160", "EXIF FNumber": "4", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "125", "EXIF SensitivityType": "Standard Output Sensitivity and Recommended Exposure Index", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0230", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2012:01:23 13:33:57", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2012:01:23 13:33:57", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "3", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "117/16", "EXIF ApertureValue": "4", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "29/8", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, auto mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "2569/200", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "3451", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "2495", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "Interoperability RelatedImageWidth": "3648", "Interoperability RelatedImageLength": "2736", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "3774", "EXIF FocalPlaneXResolution": "912000/73", "EXIF FocalPlaneYResolution": "912000/73", "EXIF FocalPlaneResolutionUnit": "2", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "1", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard"}