Emile Vandervelde

Emile Vandervelde
Vandervelde, pictured in 1919
Personal details
Born	(1866-01-25)25 January 1866 Ixelles, Belgium
Died	27 December 1938(1938-12-27) (aged 72) Ixelles, Belgium
Political party	Belgian Labour Party

Emile Vandervelde (25 January 1866 – 27 December 1938) was a Belgian socialist politician and statesman. Nicknamed "the boss" (le patron), Vandervelde was a leading figure in the Belgian Labour Party (POB–BWP) and in international socialism.

Emile Auguste Vandervelde was born into a middle-class family in Ixelles, a suburb of Brussels, in Belgium on 25 January 1866. Initially attracted by Liberal politics, Vandervelde entered the Free University of Brussels as a law student in 1881. Increasingly attracted to new socialist ideas, Vandervelde left the liberals for the socialist group, the Workers' League of Ixelles (Ligue Ouvrière d'Ixelles), in 1885. In 1886, he joined the newly formed Belgian Labour Party (POB–BWP). He worked as an academic at the Free University.

Following the extension of universal male suffrage in 1893, Vandervelde proposed a manifesto for the POB, known as the Charter of Quaregnon which would form the basis for Belgian socialist politics until the 1970s. In the 1894 elections, Vandervelde was elected to the Chamber of Representatives for the industrial city of Charleroi. He held the seat until 1890, when he transferred to Brussels which he held from 1900 to 1938. From 1900 to 1918, he held the position of president of the Second International.

Vandervelde was named Minister of State in 1914 and supported the policy of resistance to the German invasion of Belgium in World War I. In 1916, he entered the de Broqueville government. He was a delegate for Belgium at the Treaty of Versailles and subsequently involved in the League of Nations. In 1923, he helped to found the Labour and Socialist International of which he held the presidency until 1938.