Brukspatron

[Mathias Söderström]

Need a good translation for Brukspatron. Any ideas?

[Heikki Särkkä]

As a translator I would need to know whether you are dealing with a pappersbruk, järnbruk, tegelbruk or what ever have you. Use the translation needed, adding the word 'owner'. It is impossible to give a universally acceptable translation here since this is a typical culture-specific term discussed here earlier.

[Heikki Särkkä]

To make things even more complicated, I would like to know if the word occurs with or without a last name following it. With this additional info, the translator would be better able to make an informed choice.

[Mats Pettersson]

I would call him Mill owner  anyway.
Mats

[Heikki Särkkä]

Not a bad choice, if only you keep in mind that it cannot be used as a title as freely as the Swedish brukspatron.

[John Bentley]

Since both järnbruk and tegelbruk are Works in UK English (Brick Works, Iron Works), works or factory could seem more all embracing.  Perhaps Mill Owner in olden days, Factory Owner in more modern times.  
 
But then my understanding is that patron implies someone grander; in the days of the rural järnbruk, the owner may have owned surrounding land with timber supplies for charcoal and also water rights, plus he provided housing for his workers and families, justifying why my dictionary offers squire as a translation for patron.  An old English squire owned an estate , (land with a big house, farm, workers cottages) so a larger amount of land than just that on which a mill or factory building stood.  So there is no complete translation for Brukspatron conveying the exact sense.
 
(Meddelandet ändrat av Johnb 2011-07-31 20:50)

[Mathias Söderström]

The person I was thinking of owned a Iron mill = Järnbruk!

[Gunnar Håkansson]

A bruk in Sweden in the old days (before ca. 1910) was not very specialized. It was an estate, practising farming, wood use (sawing, often charcoaling, tar burning, sometimes paper milling), iron production and not seldom other works, too. The owner, the brukspatron, was a kind of granddaddy for everyone living and working at the estate. To find a good translation of that must be almost impossible, because such a person implies just that kind of society - and that could seldom be found outside Sweden, Finland (and, perhaps, Norway).

[Stefan Zylberstein]

The owner of the industrial willage perhaps. Or someting similiar.
Here the owner of the iron mill willage. Or even the owner and patron of the iron mill willage...  Lenghy, but says quite well what is was.

[Elisabeth Thorsell]

I would prefer iron works owner (if it was an iron works, otherwise whatever type of works) and then add (brukspatron), so that the very interested reader could look this upp in some dictionary.