Pierre Ryckmans (governor-general)
Pierre, 1st Graaf Ryckmans | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Governor-General of the Belgian Congo | |
| In office 14 September 1934 – 31 December 1946 | |
| Monarch | Leopold III |
| Preceded by | Auguste Tilkens |
| Succeeded by | Eugène Jungers |
| Personal details | |
| Born | 23 November 1891 Antwerp, Belgium |
| Died | 18 February 1959 (aged 67) Uccle, Belgium |
| Alma mater | Catholic University of Leuven |
Pierre Ryckmans (23 November 1891 – 18 February 1959), was a
Biography
Early life
Ryckmans was born in
Ryckmans enrolled at the Catholic University of Leuven in Leuven to study philosophy. During his first year of studies, he translated a novel by the Spanish writer Vicente Blasco Ibáñez. After two years of philosophy studies and one year of preparation for law school, he spent one more year in Braunfels, Germany (learning German), and then several months in Galway, Ireland (learning English), and then on the Aran Islands, where he learnt his sixth living language, Irish. He received his law degree in Leuven in 1913.
World War I and Africa
He had been called to the bar in Antwerp when
He went on leave in 1920, and on 3 February 1920 married Madeleine Nève in Belgium. They returned to Urundi via the Cape and the Congo. Ryckmans then stayed in
These years as Resident-Commissioner for Urundi were probably the happiest of his life. When he arrived in 1916,
Governor-General of the Belgian Congo
Interwar period
Ryckmans returned to Europe in 1928 and joined the bar in Brussels. However, he spent a lot of his time giving public lectures on the role of Belgium in Africa. Some of these lectures were later published in two books, Dominer pour Servir (1932) and La Politique Coloniale (1934). He then returned to Africa for six months in 1931–32 as a member of a commission tasked with studying the labour problem, and was put in charge of Congo-Kasai province. Upon his return to Belgium, he again gave lectures at the Colonial University in Antwerp, and appeared in radio talks about Congo for Belgian radio listeners (published in Allo Congo in 1934). In October 1934 he was appointed Governor-General of the Belgian Congo.
At that time, the Belgian Congo was badly hit by the economic crisis triggered by the
At the time, not only the government, but also simple administration services, were all centralised in
World War II
His first five years in the Belgian Congo - during which he was twice on leave – were years of progress for the administration. In September 1939
In the Belgian Congo, it was unclear how Belgium's surrender on 28 May 1940, and the following German occupation, should affect the colony. Ryckmans, who was strongly pro-Allied, insisted that the Belgian Congo declare its allegiance to the
Ryckmans attended the Brazzaville Conference from 30 January to 8 February 1944.[1]
Meanwhile, the Belgian government in exile wanted to curb Ryckmans' powers, censor his speeches and curb his independence. At the same time, local Europeans set up trade unions, while both European and African workers launched a series of strikes that he was forced to deal with. A collection of his wartime speeches, titled Messages de Guerre, was published in 1945.
United Nations
Ryckmans wanted his successor to inherit the legacy of political changes which had been launched in the Belgian Congo. In his last speech in Africa, Vers l'Avenir, later published in his speeches to the government council in Etapes et Jalons (1946), he spoke mainly about the aid which Belgium must give to the Belgian Congo, in order to allow the Belgian Congo to improve the well-being of its inhabitants.
For a number of years, until 1957, he defended the work done by Belgium in Ruanda-Urundi in the United Nations Trusteeship Council. He was also Belgium's Commissioner for Nuclear Energy and helped with re-negotiating the terms of the cooperation between Belgium, the United Kingdom and the United States following the Atomic Energy Act of 1946. He was also a member of the council of Lovanium University, the first Congolese university founded in 1954. For health reasons, he did not play a role in preparing the Belgian Congo for independence in the late 1950s. He died in February 1959, 16 months before Congolese independence on 30 June 1960.
Family
In 1960, during the chaos that followed the independence of the Congo, his son, André, who was a civil servant in
In 1962, father and son were posthumously ennobled by King Baudouin of Belgium and given the title of Graaf (count) in the Belgian nobility.
Honours
Grand cross in Order of St. Sylvester.[2] (Holy See) - 1945
See also
- List of colonial governors of Ruanda-Urundi
- List of colonial governors of the Congo Free State and Belgian Congo
References
- ^ Williams 2018, Chapter 9: The Mission.
- ^ "Zoekresultaten".
Works cited
- Williams, Susan (2018). Spies in the Congo: The Race for the Ore that Built the Atomic Bomb. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9781787380653.
Further reading
- J. Stengers, in "Libres Propos", in the biography by J. Vanderlinden (1994), "Pierre Ryckmans, 1891-1959", Ed. De Boeck Université.
External links
- RYCKMANS (Pierre Maria Joseph) (comte) in Biographie Belge d'Outre-Mer (Académie Royale des Sciences d'Outre-Mer; T. VII-A, 1973, col. 415–426) (in French)
- "Congo goes to War" from the Times Magazine, 10 Dec 1940
- The Belgian Nuclear Research Centre
- Fonds Andre Ryckmans, an NGO funding development projects
- Newspaper clippings about Pierre Ryckmans in the 20th Century Press Archives of the ZBW
- Archive Pierre Rychmans, Royal Museum for Central Africa
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Other | |
