Hansen, Jens Andersen

Jens Andersen Hansen, (born Jan. 7, 1806, Odense, Den.—died June 1, 1877, Copenhagen), journalist and politician, a leading 19th-century champion of Denmark’s peasantry.

A self-educated shoemaker, Hansen became coeditor, with Rasmus Sørensen, of the peasant newspaper Almuevennen (“Friend of the Peasantry”) in 1842; he was sole editor from 1843 to 1856. A consistent advocate of universal suffrage and agrarian reform, he served in the Constituent Assembly of 1848–49 that produced the June Constitution of 1849, providing for a Parliament and a limited monarchy. Hansen sat in Parliament from 1849 and zealously supported Denmark’s position in the Schleswig War (1848–50) and the Danish-German War (1864). After 1865 he broke with the peasant party, supporting the conservative regime of Count C.E. Frijs. His last days were clouded by the disclosure of his having defrauded insurance companies of large sums of money.