Karel Heynderickx
Karel Heynderickx (Sint-Niklaas, 27 January 1875 - Doesburg, 4 October 1962) was a Belgian municipal official, Flemish activist and member of the Council of Flanders.
Contents
Youth
Karel Heyndrickx (actually Heynderickx according to his birth certificate) was born in Sint-Niklaas on 27 January 1875. His father, Bernardus Josephus Heynderickx, was a wool and cotton dyer. As a member of the well-to-do Catholic bourgeoisie he went to secondary school at the Minor Seminary in Sint-Niklaas, where in 1893 he co-founded the Waasse Studentenkring.
Student years
In the academic year 1892-1893 he started his university studies in law in Leuven. His kot was at Muntstraat 48, Leuven. He soon became active in student life and from 1896 to 1899 was chief editor of the student magazine Ons Leven. On Sunday, February 6, 1898, he founded the Waasse Club in Leuven together with August Borms. That same year he compiled the Studentenliederboek .
Later life
Heynderickx was promoted to lawyer in 1899 and was the first lawyer to take his oath in Dutch at the Court of Appeal in Ghent. In 1900 he took up the position of town clerk in Sint-Niklaas, where before 1914 he also manifested himself as one of the most active promoters of the Flemish Movement, among other things as chairman of the Katholieke Gilde and the Vlaamse Kring. In 1908 he became secretary of the Davidsfonds, where together with its chairman Emiel Vliebergh and propagandist Eligius Ossenblok he brought about the revival of this catholic cultural association.
During the First World War, he joined the activism movement. As one of the front men in the Katholieke Vlaamsche Oudhoogstudentenbond, he became involved in the Dutchification of the Ghent college in 1916. Together with Leo Meert and Marten Rudelsheim, he signed the Manifesto of the New High School Union and in 1916 accepted an appointment as honorary professor of administrative law at the Flemish High School in Ghent. In 1917, after an initial refusal, he joined the Council of Flanders and also became president of the Dietsche Bond. In 1918, he was elected as Representative of Internal Affairs in the Commission of Representatives. Towards the end of the war he noticed that his situation was becoming hopeless and he fled to The Hague in the Netherlands to escape repression. It was not until 1922 that he found a job there as a sales representative for a German photographic equipment company. Only then could his family, consisting of nine children, be reunited. In the meantime Heynderickx, like so many activist exiles, had evolved into an outspoken supporter of the Greater Netherlands movement. He played a modest role in this movement during the interwar period. He was sentenced to death in absentia.
From 1936 onwards, he was active in Karel Waternaux's Foundation North-Netherlands-Flanders, as chairman of its section in The Hague. He was also chairman of De Groot-Nederlandsche Actie (1940-1941) and in those years a member of Arnold Meijer's Nationaal Front. As a former activist, Heynderickx received compensation and a pension from the Bormscommissie during World War II, which caused him difficulties with the Belgian authorities again afterwards.
During the last ten years of his life, Heynderickx lived in the small town of Doesburg in Gelderland, which inspired him to start painting again after more than half a century. Karel Heynderickx died on 4 October 1962 in Doesburg, the Netherlands, but was buried in his native Sint-Niklaas, where most of his bequeathed papers are kept in the Bibliotheca Wasiana.
Sources
- Hulde van “Ons Leven” aan zijnen hoofdopsteller, verzamelaar van het studentenliederboek Karel Heynderickx, Ons Leven, tijdschrift der Lovensche studenten, 11, 40 (22 juni 1899): 1.
- Joos, Moniek, Catalogus van de verzameling van Karel Heynderickx °Sint Niklaas, 27 januari 1875, + Doesburg (Ned.), 4 oktober 1962, Stadssecretaris, Secretaris-generaal, Catalogi van speciale verzamelingen Nr 4, Stedelijke openbare bibliotheek Sint-Niklaas, 1978.
- https://nevb.be/ (2023)
