Willem Benjamin van Panhuys

Portrait of Willem Benjamin van Panhuys

Willem Benjamin van Panhuys (born December 5, 1764 in Maastricht , † July 18, 1816 in Paramaribo ) was a Dutch military, plantation owner and governor-general in Suriname .

Life, military career

Willem Benjamin was the first born of his parents Huybert Aemilius van Panhuys and Johanna Gerarde nee Heldewier. At the age of 14 he entered the civil service as a cadet in the Regiment Oranje Gelderland . He quickly made a career in the military, because in 1783 he was captain of a company in the Stuart regiment under his command, in 1788 he was promoted to major and in 1793 to lieutenant colonel . In this rank he took part in the Battle of Fleurus in 1794 . In January 1795, the Netherlands surrendered to the French troops, and this ended with the Republic of the Seven United Provinces . Van Panhuys did not want to know anything about the newly founded Batavian Republic and moved to Germany. In 1799 he followed the call of the Prince of Orange, later William I (Netherlands) from exile to travel to England and support the planned invasion of the Batavian Republic by Anglo-Russian troops. After the failed coup attempt, Willem van Panhuys temporarily left the military for family reasons.

Main buildings of the Nut en Schadelijk plantation in Suriname, painted in watercolor by Louise von Panhuys in 1813

Marriages, Suriname

Willem Benjamin van Panhuys married Clasina Alexandrina Elisabeth Reijnsdorp (also Rhijnsdorp and Reynsdorp) in 1790, who died in Eisenach in 1797 . He inherited the Nut en Schadelijk coffee plantation on the lower reaches of the Commewijne from his late wife . In 1800 the widower traveled to Suriname for a short time to settle the inheritance matter on site. The second marriage followed five years later. On November 26, 1805 he married Louise Friederike Auguste von Barckhaus called von Wiesenhütten . In 1811 she accompanied her husband and his son from their first marriage, Georg Emil August (* July 22, 1796 in Hanover ; † January 31, 1871 in Frankfurt ) to Suriname. Since the ownership of the Nut en Schadelijk plantation was controversial, in 1811 they acquired the Alkmaar sugar cane plantation on the other bank of the Commewijne . In 1813, after the first fall of Napoleon Bonaparte , they left Suriname, which had been occupied by the British since 1804 , and returned to Europe.

Governor General

After his return he was appointed Governor General of Suriname in 1814 by Wilhelm I. In the British-Dutch Treaty of 1814 , the British a. a. Suriname returned to the Netherlands. However, due to the return of Napoleon, his rule of the Hundred Days and the renewed war, he was unable to take office. Instead, Wilhelm I appointed Major General Willem van Panhuys as his deputy at the Prussian headquarters in April 1815 .

After Napoleon's final defeat, it would take until the end of February 1816 before he could take over the post in Paramaribo from the British Governor Pinson Bonham for the Kingdom of the United Netherlands .

However, his reign was short-lived, as Willem Benjamin van Panhuys died on July 18, 1816 in the governor's palace in Paramaribo after a brief feverish illness .

See also

• List of governors of Suriname

literature

• AJ van der Aa : Biografisch woordenboek der Nederlanden , JJ van Brederode, Haarlem 1858, part 15, p. 79.
• PC Molhuysen and PJ Blok: Nieuw Nederlandsch biografisch woordenboek , AW Sijthoff, Leiden 1930, part 5, pp. 441-445.
• Year LC van Panhuys: De Gouverneur-Generaal Willem Benjamin van Panhuys , De West-Indische Gids , Martinus Nijhoff, 's-Gravenhage 1924, Volume 6, No. 7, pp. 289-320.