Nils Hjelmtveit

Nils Hjelmtveit (21 July 1892 – 30 October 1985) was a Norwegian educator and politician for the Labour Party. He was mayor of Stokken, MP from 1925 to 1930, Minister of Education and Church Affairs from 1935 to 1945 and County Governor of Aust-Agder from 1945 to 1961.

He was born at Hopland in Alversund municipality as a son of farmer Nils Hjelmtveit, Sr. (1861–1911) and his wife Ingebjørg Herland (1865–1893). He graduated from Stord Teacher's College in 1913, and was hired as a teacher in Eydehamn in the same year. He was promoted to headmaster in 1918. From 1919 to 1920 he also published the temperance weekly magazine Egden.

Hjelmtveit was a member of Stokken municipal council from 1919 to 1937, and served as mayor from 1923 to 1928 and 1932 to 1935. He also chaired the school board from 1921 to 1922. He was elected to the Parliament of Norway from Aust-Agder in 1924 and 1927, serving two terms. In 1935, when Nygaardsvold's Cabinet assumed office, Hjelmtveit was appointed Minister of Education and Church Affairs. He reportedly had to be strongly persuaded by Johan Nygaardsvold. Some of the cases that were decided during Hjelmtveit's tenure were naming of the committees that prepared the University of Bergen, Riksteatret and the Norwegian State Educational Loan Fund, closing of the teachers' colleges at Hamar and Notodden, the language reform of 1938, poet's grant to Arnulf Øverland, construction of Kringkastingshuset and the signing of a Norwegian-Czechoslovak cultural cooperation treaty.

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