Page 374 - The Secret Museum

THE NOBEL PRIZES HANDED OUT every year to leaders in the fields of chemistry,

physics, physiology or medicine, literature and world peace are Alfred Nobel’s best-
known legacy to the world. However, it was nearly a very different story. Over a cup
of tea in the museum café, Olov Amelin, the curator of the Nobel Museum in
Stockholm told me the story of how the prizes came into being.

The Swedish inventor and businessman Alfred Nobel invested in armaments and
had factories that produced dynamite. At first dynamite was used for mining, creating
tunnels and channels, but before long it was adapted for warfare. In 1864, his brother
Emil and four others were killed by a spontaneous explosion caused by

nitroglycerine separating out of dynamite. Nobel invented gelignite, a more stable
explosive material, to stop this from happening again. A later, most deadly, invention
of Nobel’s was ballistite (smokeless gunpowder), which he saw used during his
lifetime, to create havoc and misery. By the time of his death Alfred Nobel had
amassed a considerable fortune from destructive forces.

When his brother Ludwig passed away in 1888, the French press mistakenly
thought that it was Alfred who had died. Alfred Nobel had a large house in Paris, and
so the story was of considerable interest to French journalists. Le Figaro wrote a

most uncomplimentary article about him, calling him ‘the Tradesman of Death’.

Nobel was shocked to read how he would be remembered. Or so the story goes. It
seems a little neat, but you never know. When Olov told me the story I was reminded
of the tale of Scrooge in A Christmas Carol: Nobel had a vision of a future that
might be, and decided to change his destiny.

He thought for a while about what to do. Then, on 27 November 1895, he took
action. He went to the Swedish Norwegian Club in the Marais in Paris, sat down at a
writing desk – which is still there (the venue is now called simply the Swedish Club)
– and wrote his last will and testament.

Over four pages, he set out what he wanted to give to his relatives – he had no
children – and to his staff. He asked that the rest of his estate be invested into a fund,

‘the interest on which shall be annually distributed in the form of prizes to those who,
during the preceding year, shall have conferred the greatest benefit to mankind’.

The interest was to be divided into five equal parts and each part given to the
person who had made the most important discovery each year in four fields and,
finally, ‘one part to the person who shall have done the most or the best work for
fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for
the holding and promotion of peace congresses’ – the Nobel Peace Prize.

He had no legal assistance, he kept everything very simple, asking four men who
happened also to be in the Swedish Norwegian Club that day to witness the

document.
Nobel’s last will and testament is kept in a vault at the Nobel Foundation in
Stockholm, based just ten minutes’ walk from the museum. The vault contains several