Jørgen Jørgensen (name of birth: Jürgensen, and changed to Jorgenson from 1817) (29 March 1780 – 20 January 1841) was a Danish adventurer during the Age of Revolution. During the action of 2 March 1808, his ship was captured by the British. In 1809 he sailed to Iceland, declared the country independent from Denmark–Norway and pronounced himself its ruler. He intended to found a new republic, following the examples of the United States and the French First Republic. He was also a prolific writer of letters, papers, pamphlets and newspaper articles covering a wide variety of subjects, and for a period was an associate of the famous botanists Joseph Banks and William Jackson Hooker. He left over a hundred written autographs and drawings, most of which are collected in the British Library. Marcus Clarke referred to Jørgensen as "a singularly accomplished fortune wooer—one of the most interesting human comets recorded in history".
Jørgensen was born as the second son of the royal watchmaker Jurgen Jurgensen. Two of his brothers were watchmakers; the elder, Urban Jürgensen, was of international renown. At the age of 15, Jørgensen finished school and was apprenticed to Captain Henry Marwood of the British collier Janeon. In 1799, he sailed to Cape Town and from there in 1800 to Port Jackson, the new British colony in Australia and to New Zealand. In 1801, he joined the crew of the Lady Nelson. As a member of that crew, Jørgensen was present at the establishment of the first settlements of Risdon Cove and Sullivans Cove in Van Diemen's Land, as Tasmania was then called. He has been called the founder of the city of Hobart Town, now Hobart, and is still a local hero.
He became a mate on the crew of the whaling ship Alexander, and aboard her he returned to Britain, arriving at Gravesend in June 1806.

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