Willem Gerrit Dedel

Willem Gerrit Dedel Salomonszoon Ambachtsheer of Sloten and Sloterdijk (20 April 1734 in Amsterdam – 2 January 1801 in Amsterdam) was a Dutch politician during the Patriottentijd in the Dutch Republic. Personal life Dedel was the son of Salomon Dedel, an Amsterdam merchant who traded on France and the Dutch West Indies, and Agneta Maria Boreel. Together with his father, he founded the firm Salomon & Willem Gerrit Dedel & Co. in 1758, which appears to have been dissolved in 1776. He married Jacoba Elisabeth Crommelin (the daughter of a Haarlem burgemeester) on 3 June 1764 in Haarlem. They had two sons and two daughters. Career Dedel held many public offices in Amsterdam: commissioner in 1757, schepen 1761, councilor in the vroedschap 1768, hoofdofficier (public prosecutor) 1769–1781, burgemeester in 1784, 1787, 1790, 1793. He was appointed a councilor in the Admiralty of the Noorderkwartier in 1782–1783, and the Admiralty of Amsterdam in 1785–1786, 1791–1792. Commissioner of the States of Holland and West Friesland for the mail in Amsterdam in 1780. He was also Canon of the Church of St. Marie in Utrecht from 1757 to 1775. During the Patriottentijd he was a member of the Dutch States Party Regenten in Amsterdam, just as his colleague Joachim Rendorp. That is to say that he opposed the stadtholder, William V, Prince of Orange, but was not a sympathizer of the "democratic" wing of the Patriots, like his colleague Hendrik Daniëlsz Hooft. This would lead to his temporary downfall in the Spring of 1787. He and Hooft had been elected burgemeester of Amsterdam (together with two others) in February 1787. One of their first tasks was to decide about Amsterdam's standpoint in the matter of sending the so-called "Legion of Salm", a brigade of mercenary soldiers that was paid by the States of Holland, and was not part of the Dutch States Army, under the command of the Rhinegrave of Salm, to The Hague, as a "supplementary" garrison to the Dutch Blue Guards that already garrisoned the city, but were considered "unreliable". The mission was opposed by the Orangists in the vroedschap of Amsterdam because it would weaken the position of their political friends in the States of Holland. The Amsterdam schutterij (at least a large group of officers under leadership of Colonel Isaac van Goudoever) tried to convince the vroedschap with a threatening demonstration at the Amsterdam City Hall on 26 February 1787 to vote in favor of the mission.