Arnold Jan d'Ailly

Arnold Jan d'Ailly was born in Franeker in 1902 and grew up in Doesburg, where his father was a family doctor. He studied law in Amsterdam, earned his doctorate in 1926 and became a lawyer. After the Wall Street Crash of 1929 his father-in-law's business failed, and he moved into finance, starting at the Amsterdam stock exchange association. In 1940 he became director of the Kas-Vereeniging bank.

Money for the resistance

During the war d'Ailly played an important part in funding the resistance. He was cautious for a long time and only joined the Nationaal Steunfonds, the secret resistance fund, in 1944. He then helped finance the 1944 railway strike. After the liberation he turned down the post of finance minister, becoming a director of the Dutch central bank and head of the Herstelbank, which financed postwar reconstruction.

Rebuilding the city

On 23 September 1946 he became mayor of Amsterdam. He had joined the Labour Party (PvdA) that March. The city had to be rebuilt after the war. D'Ailly kept the port portfolio for himself and championed the restoration and expansion of Schiphol and a tunnel under the IJ waterway. On his watch the Amsterdam-Rhine Canal was completed and the docks expanded. Above all, Amsterdam built new neighbourhoods in the west: Bos en Lommer, Geuzenveld, Slotermeer and Slotervaart, known together as the Westelijke Tuinsteden, the Western Garden Cities. Construction in Slotermeer began on 1 December 1951.

It was also the start of the Cold War. After the communist coup in Czechoslovakia, the city council asked the communist aldermen to step down in 1948. They refused and were stripped of their portfolios. In January 1951 d'Ailly himself left the Labour Party after a conflict around its party chairman, Van der Goes van Naters.

The flying mayor

D'Ailly was charming, unpretentious and popular. He was known to give street kids a lift in his car. To promote Amsterdam's trade he travelled to as many as forty foreign cities, earning the nickname 'the flying mayor'. Cartoonist Jo Spier dubbed him 'Mayor d'Ailleurs', from the French for 'elsewhere'. From 1952 to 1956 he chaired the Association of Netherlands Municipalities.

In 1956 he announced his departure. An extramarital affair with the artist Gisèle van Waterschoot van der Gracht, whom he later married, played a part. He was honourably discharged as of 1 January 1957, became director of the Nationale Handelsbank and retired in 1960. Arnold Jan d'Ailly died in Amsterdam on 24 November 1967.