She was a member of the Hanseatic Berenberg banking dynasty of Hamburg and moved to Norway in 1824 when she married the mining magnate Benjamin Wegner.

She was briefly a co-owner of Berenberg Bank, and became one of the wealthiest women of Norway on her husband's death as the main owner of one of the country's largest forest estates.

With her long-time friend Hedvig Maribo she founded Norway's first women's organization, the Association for the Support of Poor Mothers, and served as one of its directors.

During the French occupation, her father was held as a hostage along with a handful of the city's other prominent merchants for some time, and Berenberg Bank later moved its headquarters to their private home.

The 1820s neoclassical Henriette Wegner Pavilion in Frogner Park was a wedding gift given to her, and was moved from the family's former home Fossum Manor in the late 1830s.

[6][7][8][9] The author Willibald Alexis describes his visit to Benjamin and Henriette Wegner at Fossum Manor in the book Herbstreise durch Scandinavien ("An Autumn Journey through Scandinavia") from 1828.