Oluf N. Roll

Oluf Nicolai Roll (25 October 1818 – 12 November 1906) was a Norwegian engineer, architect and politician. He was responsible for the industrial development of the area around the river Akerselva in Christiania, and served as Director General of Statens Havnevesen from 1861 to 1896.

Roll was born in Trondhjem, the son of Jacob Roll (1783–1870) and Emilie Pihl (1797–1822). He was a maternal grandnephew of Abraham Pihl. On the paternal side he was a half-brother of Ferdinand Nicolai Roll, Karl Jacob Roll and Selma Roll, Through them he was an uncle of Karl Roll and Arthur and Jacob Roll Knagenhjelm.

In May 1847 in Aker he married Hanna Christine Schou (1825–1867), a daughter of brewer Christian Schou and sister of Halvor Schou. They adopted the engineer Thomas Pihlfeldt.

Roll finished his secondary education in 1938, and then studied at the Royal Frederick University in Christiania, at the Polytechnische Hochschule in Hannover, and at the École des Arts et Métiers in Paris. Back in Norway he was manager at the paper mill at Bentse Brug.

In 1845 he founded the company Nydalens Compagnie together with Adam Hiorth, Hans Gulbranson and Ole Gjerdrum. He was a board member from 1845 to 1868. He contributed by designing all the buildings for the first spinning mill (1845–1847), and also at a later expansion in 1856 and the construction of a weaving mill in 1864. Nydalens Compagnie developed into the largest textile company in Norway from the 1890s. Roll has been called "Norway's first civil engineer", and also "a sort of a godfather to industrialism in Christiania". The founding of Nydalens Companie has been said to signal the start of industrialization in Norway.

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