Harald Siboni was the conservative mayor of Skive in the period 1916-21. He was also a lawyer and director of Skive Sparekasse.
Siboni is originally from the manor Konstantinsborg / Constantinsborg near Aarhus. But later in his childhood he lived at Testrupgård and graduated from Horsens Latin School in 1884. In 1890, Siboni graduated with a master’s degree in law, after which he got a position as a clerk at the manor office in Skive.
Siboni held this position until 1912 when he became director of Skive Sparekasse. Alongside his work as director, Siboni was also a lawyer from 1914 and from 1919 a senior lawyer.
After the collapse of Skive Bank in 1928, Siboni got into trouble, as a member of the executive committee of Skive Bank, he was involved in the lawsuit after the bank collapsed. This also meant that there was less confidence in Siboni’s abilities and he was dismissed as director of Skive Sparekasse.
Siboni’s political career
Prior to his election as mayor, Siboni was Chairman of the Equalization Commission 1900-05, and in the period 1911-14 Chairman of the relief fund.
In 1916, Siboni was elected as a member of Skive City Council, and after the conservative part of the city council gained a majority in 1916, he was elected mayor of the city.
The major political issue during Siboni’s term of office was the housing shortage in the city, and it became necessary to build new homes for all the new residents. At the same time, there was a worsening sanitation problem, which the next mayor, Michael Nielsen, managed to improve significantly.
During this period, P. Sabroe’s orphanage was built and inaugurated. Siboni attended the inauguration and was a board member of the orphanage.
During his time in office, Siboni was busy with other things than his office as mayor. Both the law firm and the savings bank pulled on him. And even when he resigned, he admitted that he had not spent as much time in office as he should have. It brought Siboni into political turmoil when he had used municipal funds to get a police officer to check for unoccupied homes in order to combat the housing shortage. It was one of Siboni’s personal tasks and even though the amount was not large, he should have applied for permission. It was against the rules, and it had been opposed when Mayor Kjems had wanted paid help to attend city council meetings when they clashed with Kjems’ work at the school.
In 1921, Siboni resigned from the post of mayor and at the same time resigned from the city council.
As a person
Siboni was described for his great local knowledge and “knows Salling like the back of his hand”. Even in his last days, he was said to be able to remember relationships from the many people he had gotten to know. Otherwise, he was described as an educated man of the old kind, where it was not the money that made the man.
He liked to talk about his vacation trips to Germany and the Alps. As well as his own childhood and his Italian ancestry (Siboni’s grandfather had been an Italian opera singer, invited to Denmark by Christian the 8th).
Even after the collapse of Skive Bank and his disgraceful departure from Skive Sparekasse, he was proud that the locals still trusted him. He describes how a Salling resident came to him immediately after the collapse and asked him to look after the fortune.
Sources
- Møller, Konstantinsborg – History of photography (fotohistorie.com)
- Kjems, Rud, The Social Democrat Hjalmar Kjems Denmark’s first elected mayor, p. 281-322
- Skive Folkeblad 7/11-1936, 28/8-1940