Benjamin Wegner Nørregaard

Benjamin Wegner Nørregaard (3 October 1861 – 24 April 1935) was a Norwegian military officer, railway engineer, adventurer, journalist, diplomat and internationally renowned war correspondent. He spent several years in China and served as Minister of Labour in the Tianjin Provisional Government during the Boxer Rebellion. He later worked as a war correspondent for the Daily Mail and for Scandinavian newspapers, and covered several conflicts in East Asia and Europe. He is especially known for his books The Great Siege, on the siege of Port Arthur during the Russo-Japanese War, and War, on the Boxer Rebellion.

Nørregaard graduated as an officer in 1881 and became a captain in the field artillery in the Norwegian Army in 1894. Described as an adventurer, he left the country in 1895 without permission of his military superiors, effectively ending his military career, and in the following years, he lived in East Asia during a period marked by upheavals and war. He worked as a railway engineer for the Imperial Chinese Railways from 1896 to 1900. During the Boxer Rebellion in 1900, he was employed by the Allies as head of the Ministry of Labour in the Tianjin Provisional Government, which governed the major city Tianjin and surrounding areas, a position he held from 1900 to 1902. He was also the architect of the new, monumental government building in Tianjin.

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