Guillaume Van Volxem

Guillaume-Hippolyte Van Volxem (13 February 1791 – 17 April 1868) was a Belgian lawyer, liberal politician and mayor of the City of Brussels.

Guillaume Van Volxem
Van Volxem in 1838
Minister of Justice
In office 13 April 1841 – 14 December 1842
Prime Minister	Jean-Baptiste Nothomb
Preceded by	Mathieu Leclercq
Succeeded by	Jean-Baptiste Nothomb
Mayor of Brussels
In office 13 September 1838 – 13 April 1841
Preceded by	Nicolas-Jean Rouppe
Succeeded by	François-Jean Wyns de Raucour
Personal details
Born	Guillaume-Hippolyte Van Volxem (1791-02-13)13 February 1791 Brussels, Austrian Netherlands
Died	17 April 1868(1868-04-17) (aged 77) Brussels, Belgium
Nationality	Belgian
Occupation	Politician, lawyer

Life and career

Coat of arms of the Van Volxem family

Van Volxem was born and died in Brussels. As a graduate of the École de droit de Bruxelles, he became a lawyer at the Bar Association of Brussels. He began his political career in 1830, when he was designated as temporary member of the National Congress. In the same year, he was elected as alderman in Brussels and he was re-elected in 1836. Later, he became a member of the provincial council of Brabant and a member of the Belgian Chamber of Representatives (1837–1845).

After the death of Nicolas-Jean Rouppe in 1838, he became the second burgomaster of the Belgian capital after the country's independence in 1830, as the municipal council designated him on 13 September 1838 to fulfill the functions of burgomaster of Brussels (1838–1841). He resigned as burgomaster when, on 13 April 1841, he became Minister for Justice (1841–1842) in the cabinet of Jean-Baptiste Nothomb, who succeeded on that day the liberal Joseph Lebeau, who had resigned. But van Volxem only stayed minister for twenty months, because Nothomb on 14 December 1842, took on its own account the position of Minister for Justice, in addition to that of Prime Minister. On 16 April 1843, the Catholic Jules d'Anethan became Minister for Justice after the Belgian elections in the spring of that year.

In 1845, at 54 years of age, Guillaume van Volxem withdrew from political life. Married to Adélaïde Willems, then to Félicité Marischal (daughter of the very wealthy lawyer Jacques-Herman Marischal, administrator of the department of the Dyle, and aunt of Félix Paul Tiberghien and Arthur Warocqué), he was the father of Jules Van Volxem.

See also

• List of mayors of the City of Brussels

Sources

• Du Bois, A., Les Bourgmestres de Bruxelles, in : Revue de Belgique, April 1896, p. 365-396.
• De Paepe, Jean-Luc, Raindorf-Gérard, Christiane (red), Le Parlement Belge 1831–1894. Données Biographiques, Brussel, Académie Royale de Belgique, 1996, p. 593-594.