Antonie Röell

Antonie Röell was born in The Hague on 21 August 1864 into an aristocratic family of administrators. His father was a naval officer and one of his forebears sat in parliament. He studied law and political science in Leiden, and in 1892 wrote his doctoral thesis on a topic that would soon matter enormously in Amsterdam: laws on housing for the working classes.

His career moved fast. After starting as a civil servant in the provincial offices of Arnhem and Zwolle, he became mayor of Leeuwarden (1898-1904) and then of Arnhem (1904-1910). On 16 March 1910 he took office as mayor of Amsterdam.

Five years in Amsterdam

His Amsterdam years were dominated by the growth of the city: expanding Amsterdam was the big issue of the day. Röell was a liberal, but party politics interested him less than the office itself. Contemporaries saw a rather stiff man who valued dignity and ceremony, and who gave a fine speech, even if he was not a tall man himself.

After only five years he moved on. On 16 January 1915 he became the King's (then Queen's) Commissioner for North Holland, the head of the provincial government. He had his own favourite to succeed him in Amsterdam, but Prime Minister Cort van der Linden chose someone else: Jan Willem Tellegen, the city's head of building and housing inspection. In 1921 Röell also opposed the appointment of the next mayor, Willem de Vlugt. Once again, he did not get his way.

A quarter of a century in North Holland

As commissioner he was known as a good chairman who always looked for a compromise. In 1916 he had to deal with severe flooding along the Zuiderzee coast. He also held a long list of other posts: he chaired the Hollandsche Maatschappij der Wetenschappen (a learned society), the board of the Concertgebouw company (1920-1933) and the foundation that protects the nature reserves of the Gooi region. In 1920 he led the committee behind the great Mahler Festival in Amsterdam, built around conductor Willem Mengelberg. When Mengelberg had run into trouble at the German border in 1917, Röell arranged a new passport for him.

In 1937 he was raised to the rank of baron. In August 1940, after the German invasion, he objected when the occupiers wanted to abolish the title of Queen's Commissioner. A few months later, on 29 November 1940, he died rather unexpectedly in Haarlem. In Amsterdam Nieuw-West, in a district where several streets are named after former mayors, you will find the Burgemeester Röellstraat.