David Willem Elias
An old-Republic regent who helped ease the French out of town in 1813 and died in office as mayor.
David Willem Elias links two worlds. He was born in Amsterdam on 21 August 1758 into a classic regent family, the wealthy elite that ran Dutch cities in the days of the Republic. His father Gerbrand Elias was an alderman and member of the city council. David Willem studied law in Leiden, took his doctorate in 1778 and rose quickly through the city government: commissioner, alderman, city pensionary and, from 1792, chief sheriff, the top official for police and justice. He was also a director of the Dutch West India Company.
Thrown out, and back again
In January 1795 French troops marched in and the pro-French Patriots took power. The revolutionary committee dismissed Elias on the spot, and for eighteen years he held no public office at all. When French rule collapsed at the end of 1813, his moment came again. His great popularity with ordinary Amsterdammers played a key part in getting the French out of the city, and the citizens did it in an orderly way. He joined the provisional city government and in March 1814 sat in the Assembly of Notables that approved the new constitution.
Mayor of a new kingdom
From 1814 to 1824 Elias was one of Amsterdam's college of burgomasters. On 1 March 1824 he became mayor of the city. By then he was in his sixties, had been made a jonkheer (a Dutch noble title) by King William I in 1815, and was a knight of the Order of the Netherlands Lion. He lived on the Keizersgracht.
His side jobs show how wide a city leader's role was at the time. He was vice-president of the Netherlands Bible Society, a curator of the Athenaeum Illustre, the forerunner of the University of Amsterdam, and chairman of the board of the Academy of Fine Arts. He also sat on the Amortisation Syndicate, set up to pay down the huge national debt.
Elias married twice, first Anthonia Faas and later Catharina Susanna van de Poll, and had two sons and a daughter. He died in Amsterdam on 7 December 1828, still in office. So the long line of nineteenth-century mayors begins with a man who started his career in the age of powdered wigs.
- 01In 1795 the revolutionary committee sacked Elias as chief sheriff.
- 02His popularity helped Amsterdam get rid of the French in an orderly way in 1813.
- 03King William I made him a jonkheer, a noble title, in 1815.
- 04He died on 7 December 1828 while still mayor.