Jens Hundseid

Jens Hundseid
Jens Hundseid in 1935.
Prime Minister of Norway
In office 14 March 1932 – 3 March 1933
Preceded by	Peder Kolstad
Succeeded by	Johan Ludwig Mowinckel
Personal details
Born	6 May 1883 Vikedal, Norway
Died	2 April 1965 (aged 81) Oslo, Norway
Political party	Agrarian Party Nasjonal Samling
Profession	politician

Jens Falentinsen Hundseid (6 May 1883 – 2 April 1965) was a Norwegian politician from the Agrarian Party. He was a member of the Norwegian parliament from 1924 to 1940 and Prime Minister of Norway from 1932 to 1933.

Hundseid felt forced to join Nasjonal Samling who supported the Nazis in 1940, a choice he later called "cowardly". In the legal purge in Norway following World War II he was sentenced to 10 years in prison. Pardoned in 1949 he lived a recluse in Oslo until his death in 1965.

Hundseid was born at the farm Hundseid in Vikedal which had belonged to his mother's family for generations. He studies at a local agricultural school and later at the Agricultural University of Norway. where he was together with Jon Sundby and Håkon Five was among the top students. After he finished his studies in 1905, he worked at lower secondary schools to 1908 when he became a research fellow at the Agricultural University and he briefly studied agriculture in England and Scotland in 1911. He worked as a teacher at Sem Agricultural school 1910-1912 and Telemark Agricultural School 1912-1913. He was editor of Eidsvold Blad 1916-1918 and combined this with working as a teacher at Eidsvoll folk high school. He became head of Telemark Agricultural School in 1918. Having married a farmer's daughter in 1912, he also ran his wife's family farm after 1913.

According to Halvdan Koht who knew Kolseid when he was young, he was initially conservative and later symphatized with the Liberal Party. He became a member of the Farmer's Party when it was formed in 1920.

He candidated for the Norwegian Agrarian Association in the Norwegian parliamentary election, 1918 and for the Farmer's Party in the 1921 election, both times without getting elected. He was elected to the Parliament of Norway for the Centre Party from Telemark in the 1924 parliamentary election.