The Man Behind Trondheim's Beer and also its Maternity Hospital
"Dahls" is Trondheim's own beer, and for 75 years "The Foundation" was synonymous with the city's maternity hospital. The same man was responsible for both institutions.
E. C. Dahl (1814-1882): The Man Behind Trondheim's Beer and also its Maternity Hospital.
"Dahls" is Trondheim's own beer, and for 75 years "The Foundation" was synonymous with the city's maternity hospital. The same man was responsible for both institutions.
Today, Erich Christian Dahl is best known as the founder of the brewery that produced Trondheim's own beer. He established the brewery in 1856 and brewed pale lager using the bottom-fermentation method developed in the Bohemian city of Pilsen. Dahl came from modest circumstances and lost his father at an early age, but he proved to be a talented businessman and became extremely wealthy. Parts of the brewery were housed in the old Sugar House (Sukkerhuset) in the Kalvskinnet district until the 1980s. Today, the brewery is owned by the Ringnes Group.
Many stories have been told about Dahl. It is said that he fathered so many children, including with some of his housemaids, that he might as well provide the city with a maternity hospital. According to local legend, pregnant maids were married off to brewery employees, who were paid to assume legal paternity.
One anecdote tells of a woman who came to Dahl's office because she had not received the support payment she had been promised. Dahl consulted a register but could not find her name. "But surely you remember me," she exclaimed. "I'm the one who had twins!" "Ah, yes," Dahl replied, opening another register, where he then found her name.
When E.C. Dahl died unexpectedly in 1882, his will stipulated the creation of a charitable foundation to assist newborn children and women in childbirth. In 1908, the Maternity Foundation Hospital (Fødestiftelsen) opened in Kalvskinnet, and until 1983, 99 percent of the city's children were born there. "The Foundation" is one of Norway's finest Art Nouveau buildings, designed by the Trondheim architect Johan Osness.
Dahl is buried in a family grave together with, among others, his sister Anna and her husband, Lieutenant Colonel Peter Abildgaard Birch. A relief on the memorial monument depicts E.C. Dahl's magnificent beard, a feature for which the recipient of the Danish Order of the Dannebrog was well known.