Hugo von Heidenstam

August Werner Hugo von Heidenstam (29 April 1884 – 27 July 1966) was a Swedish diplomat and engineer. In 1910 von Heidenstam was appointed chief engineer of the Shanghai Commission for Port and River and worked there until 1926. Meanwhile, he was a member of several Chinese flood control commissions, and also worked as a consulting engineer. He returned to Stockholm in 1930 and was a partner of the Swedish Hydraulic Engineering Company (AB Vattenbyggnadsbyrån) from 1930 to 1936 and director of Svenska entreprenad AB from 1933 to 1936. During the period 1936-1942 he was the Swedish envoy in Tehran and Baghdad. He has in several publications dealt with Chinese engineering issues.

Early life von Heidenstam was born on 29 April 1884 in Karlskrona, Sweden, the son of Major Adolf von Heidenstam and his wife countess Hedda (née Cronstedt). He passed the mogenhetsexamen in 1901 and enrolled at the Royal Institute of Technology the same year. He graduated from its School of Civil Engineering (roads and hydraulic engineering) in April 1905. In August 1905, he completed his reserve officer examination and was commissioned as a underlöjtnant in the reserve of the Swedish Fortification Corps on 15 December 1905.

It was back in 1907, when the Swedish Hydraulic Engineering Company formed in association with interested outsiders the Swedish Asiatic Consulting Engineering Company in order to make advances in the Far East. The pioneers were P. G. Hornell, Carl Schmidt and Hugo von Heidenstam. It turned out, however, that independent consulting engineers was unable to assert itself in competition with the financially strong construction companies that dominated the state and municipal construction activity in China and Japan, but von Heidenstam's expert entries in China's then current water issues resulted in his appointment as chief engineer at the international flood control department in Shanghai. Several Swedish engineers gathered around him as assistants in the implementation of major engineering works in the inlet to Shanghai. von Heidenstam was a member of the Chinese government's committee on regulation of the Yangtze River and of the Zhili Province rivers and more from 1917 to 1928.

During the years 1918-1922 the Swedish Hydraulic Engineering Company conducted, in cooperation with von Heidenstam, extensive communications technical studies on the expansion of Shanghai's port and its importance for world trade. The result was the establishment of an international committee for the issue's further treatment.

Death von Heidenstam died on 27 July 1966 and was buried at Åkers Cemetery in Åkers styckebruk.

Awards and decorations

Swedish

Foreign