The Faroese lawyer, editor and politician Niels Winther (1822–1892) was born in Tórshavn. As a law student in Copenhagen he contributed to national-liberal Fædrelandet (“The Fatherland”) in 1845, which was then Scandinavist in orientation and also published Hammershaimb’s attack on Danish language policies in the Faroes. Svend Grundtvig’s 1845 pamphlet advocating the recognition of Faroese also contained a contribution by Winther.

Winther was elected to the Danish parliament in 1851 and became a member of the Faroese parliament in 1852. In 1852 he started the newspaper Færingetidende (“Faroese News”), but his criticism of the Danish Trade Monopoly forced its closure that same year. In 1856 Winther withdrew from political life, left the Faroes and settled in Hjørring, Denmark. In 1875 he published, in Danish, Færøernes Oldtidshistorie (“The ancient history of the Faroe Islands”), tracing the genealogy of the Faroese back to the mythical Hyperboreans. He had been urged to write this work as early as 1857 by the historian N.M. Petersen, and it made him the founding father of Faroese historiography.