Swedes on The Western Front

I have just arrived back to Sweden from my second, amazing, trip to New Zealand. The trip went very well, and the settings in New Zealand was very well organized by Wendy, which made the time over there fruitful and a nice combination of research and well needed recreation for both of us.

Those trips has made me more and more interested in the the Swedish connections to New Zealand, and I have realised that there are a lot more connections than I initially have understood.

In the mail the other day I received a book that I ordered, about Swedish emigration to New Zealand. A very interesting book indeed, by the Swedish Author and former Ambassador in Wellington, Sten Aminoff. (1918-2000) “Svenskarna i Nya Zeeland – Den svenska emigrationen till 1940”. (1988)

It turned out that I wasn’t the first Swede to New Zealand. 🙂

The book describes the first early immigration, from mainly 1877 to 1940, the reasons behind, mentioning the “Push and Pull” factors, and then a register of most of the almost 5000 Swedes who emigrated during the period mentioned above.

It also mention the censuses, the anglification of the surnames, the naval traffic between Sweden and New Zealand.

A lot of the facts connects to my own research, and I could also find the names of those Swedish soldiers who fought for New Zealand forces in WW1, and it turned out that I have found them all in my research. The interesting part will now be to continue to find more Swedish connections to WW1, looking into the descendants of the immigrants, who were born in New Zealand, and fought in WW1. During my latest trip I discovered some more soldiers, who were sons to Swedish Immigrants, and it will be interesting to see if I can find more of them.

I so wish I had found this book before I went on my latest trip, as we went through a lot of the places mentioned in the book.

The first Swede

The first Swede who is believed to have put his feet in New Zealand was the sailor Sven Sjögren, who was a sailor on a American Whale Catcher which anchored in the Banks Peninsula in Akaroa, outside Christchurch, around 1829. I visited Akaroa in January 2023.

The story tells us that Sven sold a rifle to the Maori chief Te Waaka-Rapa, and in return Sven received a Necklace of Greenstone. The trade made it easier for the Chief to defend himself from the, from their perspective, “evil” Chief Te Rauparaha. The trade also included the daughter of Te Waaka-Rapa, Hinahina, as a bride. Hinahina followed Sven back to Sweden, but tragically she died from smallpox, in Sweden.

The Necklace was sold by a relative Sven, in an auction house in Wellington, in 1972, but was later brought back to the museum in Akaroa.

The first Swede who became naturalised in New Zealand was Charles Hopkinson. His Swedish name in not known. He was the owner of a hotel in Dunedin in 1840, and became naturalised in 1854. He later on became a “squatter”, a sheep farmer.

Another Swede, still at this date, quite famous name in New Zealand, was Charles Suisted, born in Fryksände, Värmland, Sweden, in 1810, as Carl Eberhard Sjöstedt.

He arrived as a Naval Captain with his british wife to New Zealand in 1842, from Launceston, Tasmania, Australia. He became a famous sheep farmer on the farm “Goodwood”, and he also owned the “Barret’s Hotel” in Wellington. The mountain “Mount Charles” close to Palmerston on the South Island is named after him. Carl died, age 49, and left 9 sons and 1 daughter. It is believed that more than 300 descendants to Carl is living in New Zealand and Australia today.

When Carl returned to New Zealand in 1859, after some time in Great Britain, he arrived as a passenger on, believed to be the first Swedish passenger ship to enter a New Zealand harbour, the “Equator”. The ship was loaded with expensive equipment for the new hotel, after the first one was burned down, and some other goods from Sweden.

Six swedish sailors from the “Equator” jumped ship in New Zealand.

There we have the connection to my research, about the Swedish soldiers in the Australian and New Zealand forces in WW1, which shows that most of them were sailors who jumped ship and started their new lives before joining the Army. Some of them payed the ultimate sacrifice and are today buried in Belgium and France.

The soldiers

On my recent trip I collected more information about the Swedish soldier Oscar Backman, who fought for New Zealand in WW1, and sadly died from suicide, and he is today buried in Belgium. You can read more about Oscar in the Article by Wendy Maddocks here.

The research continues

My next step is to widen my research and try to find more information about the descendants to those Swedish immigrants who decided to join the New Zealand Armed Forces, and to fight in WW1.

During my recent trip I visited three of those soldiers, today mentioned on the War Memorial in Ashburton, south of Christchurch. Those were the Nordström brothers, who today are commemorated on memorials in Belgium, and still considered to be Missing in Action, and the soldier John Polson (Pålsson) who today is buried on the Sanctuary Wood Cemetery in Belgium.

In addition to the above mentioned soldiers I also discovered another Swedish name in the village of Kumara, east of Greymouth, on the West Coast of the South Island.

It turned out that the soldier of the Swedish Immigrant Fredrik Ludvig Lindbom, his son Arthur William Lindbom, was born in Kumara. He fought for the New Zealand Forces in WW1, and was Killed in Action April 14th, 1918, and he is today commemorated on the Messines Ridge Memorial south of Ypres in Belgium. I will visit his name this summer.

My experiences from my latest trip to New Zealand has opened my eyes for Swedish immigration, but also to the facts that there are probably more stories with Swedish connection to New Zealand and WW1, which will be very interesting to study more in detail, to find more stories like the one above.

Imagine what life can bring. The interest for WW1 history connected me to Wendy, and that has brought a huge amount of knowledge into my life, and our excursions on the WW1 battlefield will continue this summer. Looking very much forward to that.

Lest we forget.

When researching for Swedish born soldiers in different digital archives, the result often comes out without any specific difficulties. You only have to be aware of what could have been changed between their emigration period and when they finally came home from the war, or when they fell and became buried on the battlefield, or at home.

It is normal that Scandinavian names and surnames were changed, especially when they emigrated to North America and Canada.

In this case it was a bit harder. I will take you through the process when I finally found out who Karl Severin Bengtson probably was in the Great War.

I like to read old digitized newspapers, and in this case I found a note about Karl Severin Bengtson (Bengtsson), how it was described to his family back home in Sweden, that he fell on the Western Front on November 8th, 1918.

My first reaction was that I thought it was a bit sad that he fell so close to the armistice.

Below you can read the Swedish text about Karl, in the second part of the text. I have translated the actual text to english below the snippet.

“-According to the message sent to the family, Karl Severin Bengtson fell on the Western Front on November 8th. He was born 1883 in Renneslöfs (Renneslöv) parish and he is mourned by his mother and his siblings.”

In the text above it is also mentioned that Harry L Carlson was killed in France. He actually fell on November 11th, 1918. His name was Harry Leonard Carlson, he kept his name and his surname, and was quite easy to find in different archives. I visited Harry last summer, in St. Mihiel American Cemetery.

Back to Karl Severin. I tried to find more information about Karl through Swedish church books and also on Ancestry. But the only results that I found on Ancestry was the facts I already knew from the Swedish Archives. No information to be found about any participation in the war. I changed the spelling, used the date of birth, date of death, but still no results. I decide to search without his surname, and also added his parents names, in this case Sven and Agneta.

I searched in the American and Canadian Archives, but still no luck.

Finally, on Ancestry, I found a Carl Swanson, with the same date of death as Karl Severin. Could this be a lead?

Below a snippet of the document I found. Normally it is hard to find the Canadian cards of “circumstance of death” regarding surnames beginning with “Sims” and beyond, due to damage of those cards.

On the card there is a lot of information that can be connected to Sweden. Mrs N Gengetson sounds like Bengtson, but it should be A Bengtson, as in “Agneta”. The village Lahelm is probably Laholm in the landscape of Halland in Sweden, here described as “Holland”. Ränneslöv parish is situated in Laholm region. Carl died of Influenza, and is buried in Canada.

I found 3215010 Carl Swanson in Library and Archives Canada, and here I got more information to compare to the facts I have about Karl Severin. Could Carl Swanson be Karl Severin Bengtsson?

Below you will see a snippet from the Canadian Archive, with some more explanations below the snippet.

The date of birth is May 29th, 1883 for Carl Swanson, and May 30th, 1883 for Karl Severin. Renslofs Saken, Sweeden is probably Ränneslövs Socken (parish) in Sweden.

The name Nita Bengtsen is probably Agneta Bengtson, as Nita is probably the nickname for his mother Agneta, and it is quite common in Sweden to call Agneta for “Neta”.

My conclusion in this case is that I have probably found Karl Severin, to be Carl Swanson. His middle name Severin and his surname Bengtsson disappeared during his time in Canada. Karl was later spelled Carl, which was very common. Karl Severin left Sweden in May 1901.

But Carl Swanson didn’t participate in the war on the Western Front, as states in the newspaper. He died in Strathcona Military Hospital, Canada, from Influenza, and he is buried in Edmonton Mount Pleasant Cemetery, in Edmonton. Below you can see how and when he probably catched his Illness, that later on led to his death.

Carl Swanson is one of few Swedish born soldiers that seems to have been drafted under the Canadian Military Service Act (M.S.A) and it looks like he was naturalized as well.

I find it very interesting to find the actual story of the different individuals I find within my research, and I can’t avoid thinking of if his family ever was informed about the actual circumstances about Carl’s death.

That will maybe be another story. May Carl rest in peace.