Willem Anthony Engelbrecht, also known as Willem Anthonie Engelbrecht, (Batavia, now

Jakarta Jakarta (; , bew, Jakarte), officially the Special Capital Region of Jakarta ( id, Daerah Khusus Ibukota Jakarta) is the capital and largest city of Indonesia. Lying on the northwest coast of Java, the world's most populous island, Jakarta ...

, 10 February 1839 –

The Hague The Hague ( ; nl, Den Haag or ) is a city and municipality of the Netherlands, situated on the west coast facing the North Sea. The Hague is the country's administrative centre and its seat of government, and while the official capital of ...

, 28 October 1921) was a Dutch jurist and colonial administrator. He was one of the originators of the so-called "

Dutch Ethical Policy The Dutch Ethical Policy ( nl, Ethische Politiek) was the official policy of the colonial government of the Dutch East Indies (present-day Indonesia) during the four decades from 1901 until the Japanese occupation of 1942. In 1901, the Dutch Q ...

" in the

Dutch East Indies The Dutch East Indies, also known as the Netherlands East Indies ( nl, Nederlands(ch)-Indië; ), was a Dutch colony consisting of what is now Indonesia. It was formed from the nationalised trading posts of the Dutch East India Company, which ...

Life

Engelbrecht was born in

Batavia Batavia may refer to: Historical places * Batavia (region), a land inhabited by the Batavian people during the Roman Empire, today part of the Netherlands * Batavia, Dutch East Indies, present-day Jakarta, the former capital of the Dutch East In ...

on 10 February 1839. He was the second son of Frederick Cornelis Engelbrecht (1804–1869), the main administrator of the

Royal Netherlands Navy The Royal Netherlands Navy ( nl, Koninklijke Marine, links=no) is the naval force of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. During the 17th century, the navy of the Dutch Republic (1581–1795) was one of the most powerful naval forces in the world an ...

in the

Dutch Indies The Dutch East Indies, also known as the Netherlands East Indies ( nl, Nederlands(ch)-Indië; ), was a Dutch colony consisting of what is now Indonesia. It was formed from the nationalised trading posts of the Dutch East India Company, which ...

(present

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Guine ...

). His mother was Johanna Nons (1813–1894). The couple had five boys and four girls. All the Engelbrecht children either became or married administrators in the Dutch Indies. Engelbrecht served as 2nd Lieutenant in the colonial army in the Southern and Eastern Department of

Borneo Borneo (; id, Kalimantan) is the third-largest island in the world and the largest in Asia. At the geographic centre of Maritime Southeast Asia, in relation to major Indonesian islands, it is located north of Java, west of Sulawesi, and eas ...

. After his military service, Engelbrecht studied at

Leiden University Leiden University (abbreviated as ''LEI''; nl, Universiteit Leiden) is a Public university, public research university in Leiden, Netherlands. The university was founded as a Protestant university in 1575 by William the Silent, William, Prince o ...

in the Netherlands. On 14 January 1862, he received his ''doctor utriusque juris'' with a thesis on colonial laws. Engelbrecht married twice and had seven children. He retired in 1897 and returned to the

Netherlands ) , anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau") , image_map = , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands , established_title = Before independence , established_date = Spanish Netherl ...

. He died at age 82 in

on 28 October 1921.

Career

Engelbrecht was one of the intellectual architects of the ''Dutch Ethical Policy'', which eventually led to the independency of Indonesia. In his doctoral thesis (Leiden 1862), he stated that the Dutch should treat the Dutch indies as a state in its own right, but subordinated to the Netherlands. This opinion contradicted the general opinion, as expressed by the jurist H.A. Blume (1858), that the Dutch Indies were just a subordinated colony. After completing his studies, Engelbrecht moved back to the Dutch East Indies to become a

civil servant The civil service is a collective term for a sector of government composed mainly of career civil servants hired on professional merit rather than appointed or elected, whose institutional tenure typically survives transitions of political leaders ...

in the colonial administration. In 1862, he became a member of the Council of Justice at

Semarang Semarang ( jv, ꦏꦸꦛꦯꦼꦩꦫꦁ , Pegon: سماراڠ) is the capital and largest city of Central Java province in Indonesia. It was a major port during the Dutch colonial era, and is still an important regional center and port today. ...

. He became the Council president in 1886, a function he occupied till 1891. In that year, Engelbrecht was appointed Director of the Department of Justice in the Dutch Indies. In this function he worked actively on the formation of the Dutch Indies as a state within the colonial empire of the Netherlands. In 1891,

Governor-General Governor-general (plural ''governors-general''), or governor general (plural ''governors general''), is the title of an office-holder. In the context of governors-general and former British colonies, governors-general are appointed as viceroy t ...

Cornelis Pijnacker Hordijk Cornelis Pijnacker Hordijk (13 April 1847 – 3 September 1908) was a Dutch jurist and politician. He was Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies from 1888 until 1893.Raad van Nederlandsch-Indië'' (Council of the Dutch Indies), the de facto government of the colony. He served as Director of the Department of Justice. In 1897 Engelbrecht retired from government service. However, he stayed active in the initiative of organising law in the Dutch Indies. His drafts led to an entire reorganisation of the Dutch Indies laws in 1900. In 1907, Engelbrecht published this codification in the ''Nederlandsch-Indisch Wetboek''. Over the years, Engelbrecht's code was re-edited several times and published in bigger and more complete editions. When Indonesia achieved independence in 1945, his work became the basis of its first legal code. Willem Anthony Engelbrecht en familie-1905

Willem Anthony Engelbrecht en familie-1905

Family

Engelbrecht married Maria Annetta Emilie Canter Visscher (1839–1865) in The Hague in 1862. The couple had one son, Johannes Frederik Engelbrecht (1863–1911), who became a member of Supreme Court of the Dutch Indies. Engelbrecht married Margaretha Pepfenhauser (1855–1946) in 1877. They had six children. Two of them died at an early age. The others were: Adolphine Henriette Engelbrecht (1878–1936), Willem Bernard Engelbrecht (1881–1955), Nisette Cornelie Engelbrecht (1882–1971) and Edwin Marie Louis Engelbrecht (1887–1960). Willem became a diplomat and Edwin a lawyer.

Main publications

* W.A. Engelbrecht, ''Artikel 2 Reglement op het beleid der Regering van Nederlandsch-Indië, in verband met artikel 107, Regeringsreglement van Nederlandsch-Indië, en de Nederlandsche wetgeving op het Nederlanderschap''. Leiden: Hazenberg 1862, 118p. (Diss. University of Leiden) * W.A. Engelbrecht, ''De Nederlandsch-Indische Wetboeken: de Grondwet voor het Koningrijk der Nederlanden, het Reglement op het beleid der Regering van Nederlandsch-Indië en andere wetten, wettelijke verordeningen en besluiten, met verwijzing naar de op elk artikel betrekking hebbende Nederlandsch-Indische, Nederlandsche en Fransche wetsbepalingen'', Semarang: A. Bisschop 1890 (over 20 editions, latest edition published in

Bahasa Indonesian Indonesian ( ) is the official and national language of Indonesia. It is a standardized variety of Malay, an Austronesian language that has been used as a lingua franca in the multilingual Indonesian archipelago for centuries. Indonesia is ...

: Jakarta: Ichtiar Baru-Van Hoeve 1989)

Literature

* D.G. Stibbe & C. Spat, ''Engelbrecht (Mr. Willem Anthonie)'', in: ''Encyclopaedie van Nederlandsch-Indië'' vol. 5, 's-Gravenhage: Martinus Nijhoff 1927, p. 148. * E.M.L. Engelbrecht, ''Engelbrecht'', in: ''Nederland's Patriciaat'' 's-Gravenhage: Centraal Bureau voor Genealogie 46 (1960), pp. 94–100.
G.J. Resink, ''Conflictenrecht van de Nederlandsch-Indische staat in internationaal-rechtelijke zetting'', in: ''Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde'' 115 (1959), no. 1, pp. 1–39
{{DEFAULTSORT:Engelbrecht, Willem Anthony 1839 births 1921 deaths 19th-century Dutch East Indies people 19th-century Dutch jurists 20th-century Dutch East Indies people 20th-century Dutch jurists Leiden University alumni People from Batavia, Dutch East Indies