Page 375 - The Secret Museum

locked cabinets filled with artefacts that belonged to Alfred Nobel. His death mask is

there, which still has bits of beard hair inside it – there has been talk, jokingly, of
cloning Nobel from his beard. Inside a box within one cabinet is the will, its pages
covered in right-slanted writing in black ink. These words, which he wrote long ago
in Paris, marked a fresh start to the way Nobel would be remembered in history.

His will has never been on display. The museum is too small to fit the kind of
secure, atmospherically controlled cabinet required to display it safely. The museum
is planning on moving to bigger premises in 2018, and hopes to be able to show it
one day but, for now, it remains unseen. I find it wonderful that these four pages,

down in a dark vault in Stockholm, have a staggering impact on the world each year.

Alfred Nobel had entrusted Ragnar Sohlman, his assistant, to be executor of his
will. When Nobel died, in 1896, Ragnar was only 25, so this was quite a job for him,
but he raced around Paris in a horse-drawn carriage, collecting cash, papers and
bonds from different banks. He packed everything into boxes and shipped it to
Sweden, from the Gare du Nord, Paris, as registered luggage. Back in Sweden, he
began slowly to sell Nobel’s shares, so the companies he had invested in didn’t
crash.

When Nobel’s will was read for the first time, there was lots of resistance to his

wishes. For starters, his family was shocked and surprised – they hadn’t known about
his plans. The Swedish royal family accused Nobel of being unpatriotic for not
supporting just Swedes but, instead, insisting that nationality was not to be
considered when choosing the winners of the prizes. And, of course, everyone who
was to be involved knew it would take a huge amount of organization each year, and
Nobel hadn’t considered the admin costs.

Still, there was also a great deal of support for Nobel’s idea. The Olympics were
happening in Greece in 1896 and there was a general sense of wanting to create a

world family and to honour people who were helping mankind. Ragnar found more
and more support as he worked steadily to set up the Nobel Foundation, and to make
Nobel’s wishes a reality. In 1901, five years after Nobel’s will was first read, the
first Nobel Prizes were awarded in Sweden and Norway. A century later, the
museum opened in Stockholm.

Each year a ceremony is held in Sweden at the same time as the Nobel Peace
Prize is awarded in Norway. The prize itself consists of a medal, a certificate and
around 10 million Swedish kronor (the exact amount varies depending on how well

the Nobel Foundation has done that year). After the ceremony there is a banquet, held
simultaneously in both countries. When Nobel wrote his will, the two countries were
one. Norway controlled interior policy and had its own parliament, the Stortinget,
whose opinions on peace issues impressed Nobel, which is probably why he gave
Norway responsibility for the prize.

The first Nobel Peace Prize, in 1901 was awarded to both Henry Dunant, who
founded the Red Cross, and Frédéric Passy, an economist who worked for