Frans Henrik Kockum

in Swedish

Frans Henrik Kockum

1802-1875

Entrepreneur is the word we use today to describe a person as Frans Henrik Kockum senior. Although his father had a tobacco factory and real estate and his mother was the daughter of the great industrialist Frans Suell (IDstory) Frans Henrik hads to work hard and faced some adversaries.

When his father Lorens Kockum suddenly died in 1825, the business community in Malmö was rocking. In 1817, the city's only bank, Malmö discont, had crashed. The father's estate was also bankrupt, but Frans Henrik had to take over the operation of the tobacco factory and did this with great success. Eventually it made a lot of profit that could be invested elsewhere.

One of many projects was to start a foundry south of the city. (Where Davidshall's square is now). The street names Kockumsgatan and Verkstadsgatan are reminiscences of the business.) It started with agricultural equipment and stoves but soon steam engines, railway cars and boats came to dominate. In the 1870s, the area became too crowded and they relocated to the harbor. Here Kockums came to dominate with its workshops and docks through a hundred years. It was for half a century Malmö's largest workplace with at its peak nearly 6,000 employees in 1960.

The shipyard was closed in 1987 and the large crane was sold to South Korea. Today the area called 'Västra hamnen' has more employees than in the old days.

Frans Henrik's tobacco factory also met a brilliant future. In 1913, several large Swedish tobacco companies were merged and formed the United Swedish tobacco factories. When the Swedish tobacco monopoly was established in 1915, Kockums at Västergatan in Malmö was the only remaining factory in Skåne.

In 1962 Frans Suell's tobacco factory was built in Malmö harbor. Here all the manufacture of cigars and cigarilles and large parts of cigarette production was concentrated.

Eventually, Volvo, through Swedish Match, took over and renamed it all to House of Blend and then sold the cigarette production to 'Austria Tabak' and concentrate the rest to other factories.

Frans Henrik was also involved in a number of other companies in Malmö, Kallinge, Ronneby, Örmo, Landskrona and Lomma. It was in the sugar business with the sugar kings Tranchell (IDstory) in Landskrona -, ironworks, ore fields, copper plants, brickworks, shipping companies, steam mill, porcelain factory and match factory etc.

Everything did not become gold but much has survived as viable companies into our time.

Frans Henrik Kockum senior was a renowend man not only in Skåne, but also in the entire Swedish business community.

Gravesite at Gamla kyrkogården (IDstory)
which is next to Gustav Adolfs Torg (IDstory).

References

• About BiBB, a media company and an encyclopedia 4.0
• Kockums Mekaniska Verkstads AB 1840-1940. Malmö Stads Historia, del 3 och 7.
• Malmö Fornminnesförenings Minnesskrift 1919. Släkten Kockum
• HDW, Wikipedia
• Swedishmatch.com
• Kockums Maskin AB
• Svenskt biografiskt lexikon
• Text: Christian Kindblad | Photo: Jonas Andréasson

Published: 2003.06 Updated: 2025.05.30

Kategorier 20 Historical persons 45 Malmö 44

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