The original cast-iron stove
In 1853, a visionary and dynamic man, N.A. Christensen, staked everything on starting his own iron foundry in Nykøbing Mors, Denmark. He had a commercial degree and three years of work experience from the bookkeeping department at an iron foundry in the nearby town of Thisted.

He started up his iron foundry with five employees, and the company made all sorts of cast iron products – stable windows, memorial crosses, kitchen stoves, pots and pans. The raw materials iron, coal, coke and casting sand were imported from England, Germany and Sweden. The company also purchased old iron for remelting. N.A. Christensen possessed the necessary business acumen to make profitable deals, an innate ability for creative ideas, and a knack for finding talented workers, and he exploited these skills to make Morsø Jernstøberi a great success. By the end of the 19th century, Morsø cast-iron goods were widely seen across Denmark. Some of the most popular products were stoves and cookers that replaced the popular old-fashioned jamb stoves operated from the open fireplace in the kitchen.

By appointment to the Royal Danish Court
Just 50 years after its founding, the iron foundry had become one of the larger companies in the country with more than 350 employees. By this time, Morsø had specialised in heating and cooking products. For example, Morsø has since 1890 installed heaters in around 1,000 churches all over Denmark, and the company also supplied stoves for many of the country’s schools. The company furthermore developed a special stove, Etatsovnen, to suit the needs of several government institutions such as Danish Mail, Danish Customs, Danish Railways and the Danish Ministries. At the royal palace of Amalienborg, Morsø installed empire-style stoves, and in 1915 Morsø was granted royal patronage for the many cast-iron stoves the company had installed at Amalienborg and in several other royal residences.

Convection principle
At the dawn of the new century, Morsø developed, in collaboration with several other iron foundries, a new and revolutionary method for fast and efficient hot air distribution. The method by and large remains the same today: The side plates fitted to the outside of the stove’s firebox form air channels into which cold air from the floor is drawn, heated, and then discharged at the top. One of the earliest examples of a Morsø convection stove is the beautiful Morsø Peacock stove.

Challenging times
During the 1950s and 1960s the emergence and spread of central heating systems made the stove all but obsolete, but Morsø then launched a revolutionary new product! An elegant, open fireplace stove, the 1122, which was introduced as a modern alternative to the stoves of the time. This drew attention to Morsø, but it was the oil crises in 1973 which really made the demand for wood-burning stoves soar. This marked the beginning of a significant increase both in the development of and the demand for Morsø stoves. However, the company experienced another critical period in the early 1990s when Danish iron foundries in general were facing difficulties. But Morsø weathered the storm, was streamlined and came back on track for the new millennium.

The original cast-iron stove
It was at Morsø Jernstøberi that the original cast-iron stove was created. Since then, Morsø has become one of the world’s leading suppliers of cast-iron wood-burning stoves and today exports stoves to all parts of the world, irrespective of the climate – from northern Scandinavia to South Africa, from the USA and Canada to Australia and Japan. Today, Morsø cast iron stoves are used in over 25 countries.