Caspar Wessel

Caspar Wessel's father, Jonas Wessel, and his grandfather were both ministers in the church. His mother, Helene Marie Schumacher and Jonas had a large family consisting of fourteen children; Caspar was the sixth of the fourteen. Caspar, together with his two elder brothers Johan Herman Wessel and Ole Christopher Wessel, attended Christiania Cathedral School in the city of Christiania from 1757 until 1763 (Christiania was later renamed Kristiania, then Oslo in 1925).

Caspar could not attend university in Norway for, at that time, there were no Norwegian universities. Since Norway was united with Denmark, the natural place for Norwegians to go for a university education was Denmark, and Caspar's brothers Johan Herman and Ole Christopher were already at the University of Copenhagen, having entered in 1761. Caspar spent one year, from 1763 to 1764, studying at the University of Copenhagen but, as one might imagine, the large family was putting quite a strain on his parent's finances. As we shall see below, this led to both Caspar and his brother Ole Christopher obtaining positions as surveyors with the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences.

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