Frederik van de Poll
The mayor who resigned because he took criticism of a tax official personally.
Fredrik van de Poll came from a wealthy Amsterdam family of merchants, bankers and insurers. He was born in Bloemendaal on 28 September 1780, studied law in Utrecht and took his doctorate in 1802. After the French period he became a tax man: first a fiscal lawyer for waterborne taxes in Amsterdam, later director of direct taxes, customs and excise for North Holland. He also sat on the city council and in the House of Representatives.
Mayor in restless years
A royal decree of 19 December 1828 appointed him to succeed the late Elias, and he took office on 1 January 1829. His years in office coincided with the Belgian Revolution. Van de Poll was himself a colonel in the landstorm, a reserve militia, and took part in the Ten Days' Campaign, the short Dutch military campaign against Belgium in 1831.
As mayor he was responsible for public order, and that is where things went wrong. In 1835 a public sale of furniture seized for unpaid taxes got out of hand and bailiffs were assaulted. A conflict with The Hague followed over how the city handled it. A member of parliament named Warin voiced criticism that Van de Poll took personally, although Warin had actually been targeting the tax inspector. Van de Poll resigned anyway and left on 13 February 1836.
Making amends
His career was far from over. In 1840 he became governor of the province of Utrecht, an appointment seen as amends for the 1835 affair. From 1839 he also chaired the commission for draining the Haarlemmermeer, the big project that turned the dangerous lake between Amsterdam and Haarlem into a polder. When the liberal leader Thorbecke dismissed him as the King's Commissioner in 1850, Utrecht voters elected him to the provincial council in protest.
Van de Poll married twice and had sixteen children in all. Through family ties he was linked to almost the entire Amsterdam establishment of the day: he was the uncle of later mayor Jan Messchert van Vollenhoven and father-in-law of mayor Gerlach van Reenen. He died in Utrecht on 13 November 1853.
- 01As a militia colonel, Van de Poll took part in the Ten Days' Campaign of 1831.
- 02He resigned in 1836 after a row with The Hague over a tax auction that turned violent.
- 03From 1839 he chaired the commission for draining the Haarlemmermeer.
- 04He had sixteen children from two marriages.