Rudolf Thomas (Mayor)

Rudolf Thomas (born May 22, 1844 in Wald ; † March 25, 1920 in Godesberg ) was Mayor of Velbert from 1877 to 1910 .

Thomas was born in Wald in the Solingen district and after finishing school he worked as a volunteer in the Walder mayor's office. After a few years in the city administration of Düsseldorf and Höhscheid , he was acting mayor in Kronenberg and Hückeswagen before he became mayor of the city of Richrath . After two years he was elected mayor of Velbert, an office which he took up on June 30, 1877.

Thomas was distinguished by his successful administrative work. In his first twelve-year term of office, he had a development plan drawn up for the first time in 1880, on the basis of which the further expansion of the town was planned. Numerous streets in downtown Velbert were rebuilt in the following years, the population grew from around 10,000 in 1885 to over 16,000 in 1895. From 1887/1888, today's Velbert town hall was built at its current location. In 1889 Thomas was re-elected. From 1892 to 1893, the Velbert district court was built next to the town hall. The first magistrate was Walter Simons , who left Velbert after only a few years and was later the non-party foreign minister in the Fehrenbach cabinet in the Weimar Republic . Under Rudolf Thomas, the city also built its own hospital for the first time, and the population and industry were also supplied with water, gas and electricity. In 1888 Velbert was connected to the railway. The population thanked Thomas by re-electing him in 1901. When Thomas retired on October 31, 1910, the city's budget had increased more than tenfold.

For his services to the city he was made an honorary citizen in 1910. He died in Godesberg in 1920.

literature

• Horst Degen, Christoph Schotten. (Ed.): Velbert - history of three cities. JP Bachem Verlag, Cologne 2009, pp. 206-211, ISBN 978-3-7616-1843-1 .