Oscar Torp

Oscar Fredrik Torp (, 8 June 1893 – 1 May 1958) was a Norwegian politician for the Norwegian Labour Party. He was party leader from 1923 to 1945, and mayor of Oslo in 1935 and 1936. In 1935 he became the acting minister of defence in the government of Johan Nygaardsvold. He was also the minister of social affairs from 1936 to 1939, and then the minister of finance from 1939 to 1942. He was appointed minister of defence again in 1942 in the London-based Norwegian exile government. He continued until the election in 1945 when he became the minister of provisioning and reconstruction until 1948.

Hailing from Skjeberg, he was first elected to the Parliament of Norway representing Oslo in 1936, but did not take a seat in the Parliament until 1948. He then became the faction leader for the Labour Party in Parliament. He became the prime minister of Norway in 1951 when Einar Gerhardsen stepped down from this position; the move was reversed in 1955 when Torp became the president of the Storting. He held this position until his death.

Early life and career He was born in Skjeberg as a son of Anton Fredrik Andersen Torp (1865–1907) and Anne Bolette Andreassen Gade (1867–1932). He had eight siblings, and lost his father at a young age. His father worked in Canada from 1903, and sailed home to collect his family to emigrate to Canada in 1907. However he died en route, near Liverpool. Torp attended primary school before joining the workforce at age 13. He eventually became an electrician, and already at the age of 14 he became deputy treasurer in his local trade union. He also joined the Norwegian Labour Party, and was elected to the national board in 1918, when an opposition of revolutionaries assumed power in the party. Torp chaired the party chapter in Sarpsborg from 1919 to 1921 and in Østfold county from 1921 to 1923. He was married to Kari Hansen (1893–1967) since April 1916.

Party chairman and cabinet member In 1922 Torp was a delegate at the Fourth Comintern Congress. In 1923 the revolutionary wing that had assumed power in the Labour Party in 1918 had split into two wings, one for and one against Comintern membership. Torp belonged to the latter wing, which assumed power at the 1923 national convention. Torp was elected chairman of the entire party. Torp chaired the party until 1945. and was elected to the Parliament of Norway in the 1936 Norwegian parliamentary election. By that time he had already become acting Minister of Defence in Nygaardsvold's Cabinet, filling in for Fredrik Monsen who was ill. He was then Minister of Social Affairs from November 1936 to July 1939, and Minister of Finance from July 1939 to March 1942.

Much because of his exile, Torp was no longer found fit to be party chairman, and was replaced, against the party by-laws. He was also demoted to Minister of Provisioning and Reconstruction in Gerhardsen's Second Cabinet. He was pressured to leave this office as well, He was buried at Vår Frelsers gravlund. A memorial stone was raised in Skjeberg in 1976.

Books about Torp include Nils Hønsvald's Oscar Torp, released in 1959, and Egil Helle's Oscar Torp – arbeidergutt og statsmann, released in 1983. In 2007 Hans Olav Lahlum released Oscar Torp. En politisk biografi.