R. A. Wrede

Baron Rabbe Axel (R. A.) Wrede af Elimä (16 July 1851 – 16 February 1938) was a Finnish jurist and politician, born in Anjala. He was born into a Finland-Swedish noble family, the Wrede af Elimä. He was a professor at the University of Helsinki from 1885 to 1909 and made procedural law an independent discipline in Finland. He was a member of the Diet of Finland from 1877 to 1906 and of the Parliament of Finland from 1910 to 1913 and from 1917 to 1919, representing the Swedish People's Party of Finland.

Biography His father, , was a lawyer and member of Parliament, and his mother was Anna Baeckman. His brother, Karl August Wrede, was an architect. He married Johanna Sofia Paulina Wrede in 1879. The couple had three children: Anna Helena (b. 1880), (b. 1882) and Henrik August (b. 1884).

Academic career Wrede graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in juris utriusque in 1879 and then studied with Adolf Wach in Leipzig and Oskar von Bülow in Tübingen. He became a Doctor of Laws in 1884 with the thesis Om kvittning enligt finsk rätt (On set-off according to Finnish Law). He qualified for the professorship with the work Processinvändningarna enligt finsk allmän civilprocessrätt (1884). After competing for the post with Julian Serlachius, he was appointed professor of civil law and Roman law at the University of Helsinki in 1885. When the chair was divided in 1898, Wrede chose the professorship in civil procedure, Roman law and legal encyclopaedia, which he held until 1909.

Wrede became rector of the University of Helsinki in 1905. He was chancellor of Åbo Akademi University from 1918 to 1930. He became a foreign member of the Swedish Academy of Sciences in 1924.