Arvid Posse

Who was Arvid Posse?

Count Arvid Rutger Fredriksson Posse was the Prime Minister of Sweden from 1880 to 1883.

Arvid Posse was born at Rosendal manor in Malmöhus County, as the son of Governor Count Fredrik Posse and Baroness Magdalena Charlotta Bennet. In 1835 he enrolled at Lund University, receiving a law degree in 1840. The same year, he began as a trainee at the Court of Appeal of Skåne and Blekinge, during which time he worked both at district courts and at the Court of Appeal itself. Later, he was appointed Assistant District Judge and in 1846 a clerk at the Court of Appeal, and in 1847 was made an Associate Justice at the Court. In 1849 Posse left public service and resettled at Charlottenlund Manor and devoted his time to agriculture, enterprise and local politics.

Posse began his political career as a member of the House of Nobility at the Parliament of 1856-58. He was then the Chairman of the Banking Committee. In the Parliament of 1862-63 he chaired the Appropriations Committee, where he was a strong proponent of the principles of free trade, which he would remain throughout. During this Parliament, he seriously objected to proposed amendments to the Law on Local Self-Government concerning proposed restrictions on the vote shares of larger land-owners, fearing, among other things, that the amendments, if adopted, could undermine the proposed electoral reform. Posse himself, however, did not support the reform. On the contrary, he was one of the most ardent opponents of the reform and predicted at the Parliament of 1865-66, when he was Chairman of the Committee on Government Affairs, that the fatherland would meet with an unhappy future if the reform were carried through. Among other things, he feared the new electoral system would put too much power into the hands of the agrarian interests, who would soon forget "the many things that have to live both above and beside them". Notwithstanding this statement, at the first session of the Riksdag's Lower House in 1867, Posse became the self-appointed spokesman for the agrarian group, effectively making him House majority leader. From this group was formed the Lantmanna Party, which, with Posse as leader, soon adopted an oppositional stance towards the Government. For a number of years Posse remained unquestionably the most prominent and powerful personality in Parliament, even if not the most charismatic.