Ole Selmer (January 9, 1745 – June 26, 1822) was the representative of the state in Skive and Sallingas town and shire bailiff from 1779 until his death in 1822. He performed many functions in the municipal administration. And not everyone was equally enthusiastic about his administration.
Background and career
Ole Selmer was the son of town bailiff Lorens Asmus Selmer in Rønne. After graduating with a law degree, he was employed in 1772 as a provision clerk and clerk at the Maritime Provision Council. On May 26, 1779, he was appointed town bailiff in Skive and shire bailiff in Salling. In 1782 he was also appointed as a lawyer. In 1815, he was appointed as a councilor (with rank in the 6th rank class no. 1).
Selmer’s many hats
Selmer was a royally appointed official and served as mayor, judge, chief of police, bailiff, probate administrator, tax collector (of state taxes) etc. The office included both Skive Købstad and the four lordships of Salling (Nørre, Rødding, Hindborg and Harre H.), which each constituted their own jurisdiction.
The municipal administration in the 1770s
As town bailiff, Ole Selmer was the head of the municipal administration in Skive. To assist him, he had a town clerk (a proxy, royally appointed) and a clerk in charge of collecting municipal taxes. And from 1774, six “eligerede mænd” (reduced to four in 1793), who, together with the town bailiff, had to prepare estimates (budgets) for the market town, which the town bailiff had to administer. The elected citizens thus had some influence on the administration of the market town, but major decisions had to be approved by the county governor and the government. It was a modest municipal administration, but there weren’t many to administer either: In the 1787 census, Skive had 477 inhabitants, in 1801 520 and in 1834 980 inhabitants.
He was also a judge
In addition to municipal administration, the town and shire bailiff was also a police chief, prosecutor and judge, and he was also responsible for enforcing the sentences handed down. Again with the help of the town clerk. Every week, town and shire councils were held, where cases were heard in the presence of witnesses to ensure that things were done properly.
The rumor according to Jeppe Aakjær
Jeppe Aakjær (Skivebogen 1917) assessed Selmer as chief of police and judge as follows: “His time in office fell in a difficult period for the farmer (the loosening of the Staves and the time of the great agrarian reforms). He does not seem to have understood his time; he was most often on the side of the landowners and can hardly be denied a biased interrogation method. The hatred for him has been passed down to this day [1917], the name of bailiff Selmer is fit to kiss children with.” The system was widely criticized for good reason, but it wasn’t until the judicial reform of 1919 that the office of town and county bailiff was split into two offices of police chief and judge. The position of mayor of Skive ended in 1914, when the city council voters elected teacher Hjalmar Kjems as Denmark’s first elected mayor in recent times in a referendum.
Revenues
The town and shire bailiffs were tasked with a wide range of duties, many of which required a fee or tax to be paid. In this way, the town and shire bailiff pieced together his income so that the office was quite well remunerated. And the town and shire bailiffs were placed in the highest social strata of the town. This prosperity was reflected in the fact that Ole Selmer – like his predecessors – owned the large farm Adelgade 16, which was even called “the bailiff’s farm”, because this is where the town and shire bailiff lived from 1754 to 1839.
Marriage goals
On September 1, 1773, Ole Selmer married 17-year-old Kirstine Knudsen (May 1, 1765 – November 30, 1826). The couple had a total of 17 children, of which one was stillborn and three died as children and adolescents. Kirstine Selmer outlived her husband by four years. She was survived by five sons and four daughters and 41 grandchildren (one daughter, Juliane Marie, had 20 children, some of whom died young).
The grave site
The Selmer couple set up a grant of DKK 400 for the maintenance of their grave site, but the money must have run out because it was allowed to fall into disrepair. In 1922, the memorial to Ole and Kirstine Selmer was renovated. “It was completely overgrown with moss, and its inscription has been completely illegible for many years,” wrote Else Christensen, director of Skive Museum, in two articles in Skive Folkeblad in 1922. The reason was that “the monumental memorial”, as Else Christensen calls it, had been uncovered, the inscription pulled up so that it was legible again, and the stone and marble urn cleaned of old dirt.
In the chronicles, Else Christensentranscribed the entire inscription. This was a great help when it was necessary to restore the memorial again in 1999, as the inscription had again become “completely illegible”. The restoration was carried out by stonemason Palle Jepsen, Stenhuggergården in Skive.
Sources:
- Else C. (Christensen): Herredsfoged Ole Selmer’s family grave. In: Skive Folkeblad 30 8. and 31.8. 1922.
- Johannes Møllgaard: Skive 1660-1800. In: Skive kommunes historie fra antitiden til 1880. 2001, p. 291-299.
- Carl Hansen: Byens styre. In: The book about Skive. 1926, s. 157-171.
- Jeppe Aakjær: Ret og skjel, før vi blev til. In: Skivebogen 1917, p. 1-67.