Peter Frederik Suhm

Who was Peter Frederik Suhm?

Peter Frederik Suhm, was a Danish-Norwegian historian.

Suhm studied at the University of Copenhagen in 1746-1751, and one of his teacher was Ludvig Holberg. In 1749 he translated comedy of Plautus and French theatrical piece.

In 1751 he traveled to Trondheim together with the Danish historian Gerhard Schøning, with whom he continued to collaborate over the following years. Together they produced Forbedringer til den gamle danske og norske Historie in 1757. In Trondheim he married Karen Angell 19 April 1752. She was the daughter and only inheritor of a wealthy Norwegian merchant Lorents Angell who had died the previous year. Karen Angells mother accepted the connection on the condition that they stayed in Trondheim for the remainder of her life. Suhm accepted, and stayed on in Trondheim, with a short interval in Copenhagen in 1755, for the next nine years, where she died and Suhm and his wife moved back to Copenhagen. The inherited wealth allowed Suhm a life devoted to the sciences and his bookcollection.

Schöning and Suhm, together with Johan Ernst Gunnerus, founded the Royal Norwegian Society of Sciences and Letters in 1760 under the name Det Trondhiemske Selskab.