Ole Gabriel Gabrielson Ueland

Ole Gabriel Gabrielson Ueland (born Oct. 28, 1799, Lund, Nor.—died Jan. 9, 1870, Christiania, now Oslo) was a teacher and politician, the foremost champion of Norway’s peasant class during the middle of the 19th century.

A schoolteacher when first elected to the Storting (national parliament) in 1833, Ueland became the chief spokesman of Norway’s peasantry in that body for the next three decades. He championed such causes as local self-government, amelioration of the living and working conditions of urban and rural labourers, mass public education, universal conscription, and economy in government. In the mid-1860s he was displaced as leader of the peasant party in the Storting by Sören Jaabaek, who was more national in outlook. Ueland left the new leader a politically aware class that played a major role in Norway’s modernization.