Josef Martin Knüsel
member of the Swiss Federal Council (1813-1889)
Melchior Josef Martin Knüsel (16 November 1813 – 14 January 1889) was a Swiss jurist and politician from the Liberal Radical Party (FDP) and member of the Federal Council of Switzerland over which he presided in 1861 and 1866. Before he was also a member of the Grand Council and the Executive Council of Lucerne and also of the National Council.
Education and early life
Knüsel was born into a Catholic household on the 16 November 1813 in Lucerne to Melchior Josef and Josefa (born Küttel) Knüsel. His father had a grocery store and he grew up in a financially stable household. He attended primary and high school in Lucerne and decided to study jurisprudence. In the 1830s he studied law at the University of Göttingen between 1834 and 36 and the following year at Heidelberg. In 1838 he graduated with the Lucernese State Exam. He then stayed for some months in Romont and Lausanne to further his knowledge of the French language.
Professional career
In 1838 Knüsel was appointed a provisory clerk of the criminal court and in 1839 he became a criminal judge. In 1841 the conservative leaning Grand Council of Lucerne elected him to become the provincial prosecutor despite the fact that he had become a member of the Liberal party.
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This entry incorporates text from “Josef Martin Knüsel” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.