Edmund Theobald Harbitz was a Norwegian

Norway

Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...

 lawyer and politician for the Conservative Party

Conservative Party of Norway

The Conservative Party is a Norwegian political party. The current leader is Erna Solberg. The party was since the 1920s consistently the second largest party in Norway, but has been surpassed by the growth of the Progress Party in the late 1990s and 2000s...

. He chaired the party from 1905 to 1908, and served as mayor of Oslo from 1899 to 1901.

Early life and career

He was a son of office manager Christian Fredrik Gottfred Bohr Harbitz (1833–1916) and his wife Fanny Theobald (1839–1872). He was the older brother of pathologist Francis Harbitz, and a paternal grandson of Georg Prahl Harbitz

Georg Prahl Harbitz

Georg Prahl Harbitz was a Norwegian priest and politician.He was born in Haus to innkeeper Nils Harbitz and his wife Elisabet Christine Ibsen. His father died when Georg was eight years old, and he was eventually sent to the wealthy family Prahl in Bergen for upbringing. Here, he was inspired to...

. He enrolled as a law student in 1880, and graduated with the cand.jur. degree in 1884. He worked as a law clerk from 1884 to 1890, and in 1890 he opened a lawyer's office together with the later Prime Minister of Norway

Prime Minister of Norway

The Prime Minister of Norway is the political leader of Norway and the Head of His Majesty's Government. The Prime Minister and Cabinet are collectively accountable for their policies and actions to the Sovereign, to Stortinget , to their political party, and ultimately the...

, Christian Michelsen

Christian Michelsen

Peter Christian Hersleb Kjerschow Michelsen was a Norwegian shipping magnate and statesman. He was the first Prime Minister of an independent Norway from 1905 to 1907...

. In 1896 Harbitz was granted access to Supreme Court

Supreme Court of Norway

The Supreme Court of Norway was established in 1815 on the basis of the Constitution of Norway's §88, prescribing an independent judiciary. It is located in Oslo and is Norway's highest court...

 cases.

In November 1891 in Hamburg

Hamburg

-History:The first historic name for the city was, according to Claudius Ptolemy's reports, Treva.But the city takes its modern name, Hamburg, from the first permanent building on the site, a castle whose construction was ordered by the Emperor Charlemagne in AD 808...

 he married Helga Fredrikke Winding Pettersen, who hailed from Bergen

Bergen

Bergen is the second largest city in Norway with a population of as of , . Bergen is the administrative centre of Hordaland county. Greater Bergen or Bergen Metropolitan Area as defined by Statistics Norway, has a population of as of , ....

.

Political career

In 1897 Harbitz became involved in the Conservative Association in Kristiania

Oslo

Oslo is a municipality, as well as the capital and most populous city in Norway. As a municipality , it was established on 1 January 1838. Founded around 1048 by King Harald III of Norway, the city was largely destroyed by fire in 1624. The city was moved under the reign of Denmark–Norway's King...

. He chaired this association from 1898 to 1904. In December 1898 he was elected to serve in Kristiania city council. With 43 out of 84 votes, the city council elected Harbitz as mayor. He served as mayor for one term, until 1901. His term as mayor was greatly affected by the economic bust

Boom and bust

A credit boom-bust cycle is an episode characterized by a sustained increase in several economics indicators followed by a sharp and rapid contraction. Commonly the boom is driven by a rapid expansion of credit to the private sector accompanied with rising prices of commodities and stock market index...

 of 1899.

Harbitz was also active in national politics, and was a member of the national Conservative Party for many years. He chaired the party from 1905 to 1908, succeeding Ole Larsen Skattebøl

Ole Larsen Skattebøl

Ole Larsen Skattebøl was a Norwegian judge and politician for the Conservative Party.He was born in Ål. He was elected to the Parliament of Norway in 1877, representing the constituency of Buskeruds Amt, and was re-elected in 1880. He then took a hiatus before serving two more terms,...

 and being succeeded by Fredrik Stang, Jr. In 1905 he was asked to become a minister in the new cabinet Michelsen, but he declined.

He also chaired the board of the conservative newspaper Morgenbladet

Morgenbladet

Morgenbladet is a Norwegian weekly newspaper. It was founded in 1819 by the book printer Niels Wulfsberg, and was the country's first daily newspaper. For a long time, it was also the country's biggest newspaper. It was closed down by the German Wehrmacht during World War II...

from 1902, but due to disagreements with editor-in-chief Nils Vogt in 1913, both Harbitz and Vogt stepped down from their positions. Harbitz died three years later.