Norwegian Visit

One of the most eclectic folders in the collection is one labelled ‘Deputations and Official Visits’. It contains hundreds of documents relating to tours, trips and educational visits to the harbour from naval officials to Scouts.

One visit that stood out to me was a visit of four Norwegian mayors in 1949. The mayors of Oslo, Bergen, Stavanger and Trondheim (along with Mr Bech, their English speaking secretary) toured to the UK to visit Aberdeen, Edinburgh, Newcastle, Durham, York, Cambridge and London to study British municipal methods. We have this information as the dossier prepared for the visit which details the context, plans and biographical notes of each mayor has been preserved.

On arrival, the mayors were entertained by the Town Council at a civic dinner. The next day the group were taken on a tour of the fish market, pontoon dock no.3, the Hall, Russell & Company’s shipbuilding yard, dock gates, new deep water berth, coaling installation at Point Law and the new south breakwater.

      

[The mayors during the Aberdeen Harbour tour]

As well as a typical deputation visit, there may have been an underlying motivation from the Harbour Commissioners as there is documentation in the file to suggest that they were scoping out potential ferry routes from Aberdeen to Norway.

Papers show that they were collecting information about current passage to Norway as well as sizing up competition from the port in Newcastle. This is reinforced by the addition of two pamphlets for two separate ferry companies with routes from Newcastle and London to Norway.