Catharina Elisabet (Betty) Ehrenborg-Posse

Catharina Elisabet “Betty” Ehrenborg-Posse (1818–1880) was a Swedish writer, translator, teacher, hymn writer, and pioneer of Christian education. She was born on July 22, 1818, at Råbäck in Västergötland into the Ehrenborg family and grew up in a literary and religious environment. After work as a governess, she studied at the British and Foreign School Society in London in 1852–1853, an experience that strengthened her interest in modern educational methods.

Returning to Sweden, Ehrenborg-Posse became active in teacher training, deaconess-related education, publishing, and Sunday-school work. Swedish biographical sources regard her as an important figure in the development of Swedish popular and Christian education, and she became widely associated with the beginnings of the Swedish Sunday-school movement. She wrote and translated religious songs for children and helped bring international evangelical material into Swedish use.

Her name became closely attached to the Christmas song “När juldagsmorgon glimmar,” which she included without attribution in Andliga sånger för barn in 1856. Later research, however, traced an earlier Swedish appearance in 1851 that credited Swiss pastor Abel Burckhardt. Ehrenborg-Posse’s role is therefore best described as translator and transmitter rather than original author of the source text represented by the later English hymn. She married Johan August Posse in 1856 and died on July 22, 1880.