Magnus Nilssen

Magnus Nilssen (18 July 1871 – 20 November 1947) was a Norwegian politician for the Labour and Social Democratic Labour parties.

He was born in Lillehammer as a son of shoemaker Mathias Nilssen (1834–1920) and his wife Eline Pedersen (1835–1918). He was a first cousin of Marcus Halfdan Kastrud. He finished his apprenticeship as a goldsmith in 1889, and moved to Kristiania in the same year. He was a secretary in his local trade union from 1891 to 1892 and treasurer in 1893. He was also member of the socialist youth club Friheden in both Kristiania and Sarpsborg (where he lived in 1894). He started his own goldsmith business in 1897. In November the same year he married Inga Marie Ravneberg. In 1921 he quit the central board to co-found a new party, the Social Democratic Labour Party of Norway. He chaired this party throughout its existence, from 1921 to 1927.

Nilssen was a member of Kristiania (Oslo) city council from 1902 to 1910, 1914 to 1919 and 1926 to 1928. Nilssen also served as Minister of Labour in the two-week Hornsrud's Cabinet between January and February 1928. Fredrik Monsen was the party's new member of the Presidium.

Nilssen was a member of the supervisory committee of the Gjøvik Line from 1908 to 1919, and of the supervisory council of Norges Brannkasse. He was a school board member in Oslo from 1910 to 1922 and 1929 to 1937, and a board member of the Norwegian State Railways from 1922 and Oslo Hospital from 1933. He was a deputy board member of the Institute for Comparative Research in Human Culture from 1938 to 1940, and a deputy member of the Norwegian Nobel Committee from 1922 to 1940.

Nilssen died in November 1947 in Oslo.