Thor Philip Axel Jensen

Thor Philip Axel Jensen (3 December 1863 – 12 September 1947) was a Danish entrepreneur who moved to Iceland at an early age and became famous there for his business activities during the first half of the twentieth century: he all but introduced big business, and even modern capitalism, to the country. His company Kveldúlfur hf. was the biggest in Iceland during the inter-war years. His descendants include some of Iceland's most powerful and well known figures.

Thor's father, Jens Chr. Jensen, was a master builder. Thor had eleven siblings and four half-sisters. Thor did well in his studies but lost his father at the age of eight. Two years later, he was sent to a free boarding school for orphans in Copenhagen. In 1878, at the end of his studies and after reaching confirmation age, Thor was sent to Borðeyri, a small trading settlement in the north-west of Iceland, because his headmaster knew an Icelandic merchant there.

Thor adapted quickly to Iceland, learning Icelandic and reading medieval Icelandic sagas. A certain widow moved to Borðeyri with two children in tow—a boy and a girl. The girl was called Margrét Þorbjörg Kristjánsdóttir; she and Thor fell in love, and remained together for over sixty years, having twelve children.

Thor and Margrét moved to Akranes where Thor started a shop. Business went well at first, but around 1900 Thor was bankrupted when a ship carrying his goods was lost. Thor moved with his family to Hafnarfjörður where they lived until Thor got back on his feet and established a new shop in Reykjavík. Fishing at this time in Iceland was in transition from being 'a secondary occupation for farmers' to being 'an industry in its own right'. Thor was known for his energy and 'two of the most powerful fishing businessmen in Seltjarnarnes, Guðmundur Einarsson í Nesi and Þórður Jónasson í Ráðagerði, said that they would buy fishing equipment from him if he offered it at a competitive price'. Guðmundur gave Thor the use of his premises on the corner of Austurstræti and Veltusund in Reykjavík, and both he and Þórður invested 500 krónur to start the company. Thor called the company Godthaab-verzlunin after the street Godthaabsvej in Frederiksberg in Copenhagen. The company did well and Thor was soon the richest person in Iceland. In 1908 he built himself a splendid house at Fríkirkjuvegur 11, by Tjörnin, now in the Hallargarður sculpture park.

With Pétur J. Thorsteinsson, Thor was a founder member of the fishing and fish-processing company PJ Thorsteinsson & Co, otherwise known as the Milljónarfélagið, in 1907. The company's name came about because it aimed to achieve a share capital of ISK1m, which would have equalled Iceland's state budget---though that goal was never quite achieved. Through it, Thor took a role in the design of the Jóni forseti, Iceland's first trawler; established a harbour at Viðey; and built Iceland's only railway line. Pétur and Thor got on badly; Pétur left, and four years later, the company was bankrupt; both partners lost money, but Pétur the more. 'At the time, there was an investigation into the affair, where Jensen famously couldn’t remember a thing about the whole debacle.' Later, in his autobiography, Jensen argued, implausibly, that the bankruptcy was in no way his fault. He was also a founder member of Eimskip but was not elected to the board on account of his origins, and took no further role in the company.

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