Nils Erik Wilhelm af Wetterstedt

Baron Nils Erik Wilhelm Wetterstedt, ennobled as af Wetterstedt (8 November 1815 – 1 January 1887) was a Swedish diplomat and translator of opera libretti. In his early career he worked in the Swedish Foreign Office and had diplomatic posts in Vienna, Berlin, the Hague and Copenhagen. In 1857 he was appointed Swedish-Norwegian resident minister to the United States. He was recalled at the outbreak of the American Civil War and then served as envoy extraordinaire and minister plenipotentiary to the Netherlands, in late 1864 he returned to North America as envoy to Washington and envoy to Mexico. He ended his diplomatic career in 1870, due to his ill health, and died in Skövde in 1887.

Early life af Wetterstedt was born into the noble family in Stockholm, Sweden on 8 November 1815. He was the son of the State Herald of Sweden, Baron (1780–1855), and the stiftsjungfru (a title for unmarried noblewomen) Charlotta Amalia von Heland (1789–1866). His paternal grandfather was the county governor, Baron Erik af Wetterstedt. His paternal uncles were the Minister for Foreign Affairs and member of the Swedish Academy, Count Gustaf af Wetterstedt (1776–1837), and the adjutant general (1784–1863). Wilhelm became a baron at the same time as his father, upon the death of his father’s elder brother Carl, on 5 October 1853.

Wilhelm had several siblings: Hilda Maria (1812–1898), Georg Adolf Arnold Steen (1803–1878), Vilhelmina Adelaide (1814–1817), Sten Gustaf Ludvig (1817–1897), Carl August Alfred (1819–1874), Adolf Robert (1821–1869), Elina Sofia Lovisa (1823–1880), Amalia Vilhelmina (1825–1903), and Lars Fredrik (1829–1830).

Wilhelm became a student in Uppsala in 1832, where he later earned an administrative degree (kansliexamen).

When the Emperor of Mexico announced his accession to the throne, the King in Council instructed af Wetterstedt, on 10 October 1864, to travel there on a corresponding mission. In a report dated 30 November 1864, he wrote that he had arrived the previous day from Havana to Veracruz. There, an imperial carriage and cavalry escort were placed at his disposal for the journey to the capital, Mexico City, which he planned to begin the next day. Because of poor road conditions, the trip was expected to take seven to eight days.

On 29 September 1870, the King in Council accepted af Wetterstedt’s resignation, following his request to be relieved of duty due to overexertion.

Personal life af Wetterstedt married on 6 November 1864 in New York to Carolina Augusta Wilman (11 December 1839 in , Stockholm – 3 October 1909 in Skövde). The couple had no children.

In his later years he published a translation of Lord Byron's Heaven and Earth (1879). Upon his death, his baronial title passed to his younger brother, the former senior clerk in the Swedish Agency for Administrative Development (Statskontoret), Ludvig af Wetterstedt, and to Ludvig’s eldest son, a second lieutenant in the Svea Life Guards.

The city’s Good Templar lodges, carrying their banner adorned with flowers, also joined the procession, as a gesture of gratitude toward the deceased, who had shown the lodges great favor. The Good Templars' band played the customary funeral hymns at the graveside. From the church and the nearby square, a large crowd accompanied af Wetterstedt to his final resting place.

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