First female Dutch jurist, economist and first member of parliament of the short lived progressive Liberal Party of Samuel van Houten.
Lizzy van Dorp was an independent “first in field” intellectual wrote her KNAW biographer: The first female jurist in Holland, the first female Dutch economist and the first woman to enter the Dutch parliament, having soon an one woman fraction, and thus establishing the first feminist Party ever in Dutch parliamentary history.
Lizzy was the only daughter of her feminist and Remonstrant mother Adriana Elisabeth Verdam (24 mei 1847, Amsterdam – 1935) and Gerard Carel Théophilus van Dorp (2 November 1828, Veghel – 1886). Her father owned the Publishing firm G. C. Th. van Dorp & Co. at Semarang, Java. When her father died early, Lizzy was 13, her mother had to deal with the “male” affairs. But that was not easy, because the Dutch law system was not written for autonomous women.
Lizzy’s only brother was Gerard Carel Adriaan van Dorp (20 September 1873 – 24 March 1964, Katwijk). He would become a phil.nat.dr. chemist and director of the Society for Chemical Industry “Katwijk” at Katwijk aan Zee. Her uncle on mothers side was Jacob Verdam (22 Jan 1845 – 19 July 1919), professor of Letters and the author of the “Middelnederlandsch woordenboek”, the codex of medieval Dutch language.
Lizzy followed the HBS and Gymnasium in Arnhem. From 28 October 1896 till her Doctoral exam Law on 26 April 1901 she studied old and modern Letters (Kandidaats, 1898) and Law (1901) at Leiden. She was the first woman that was permitted to study Law at a Dutch University. She dissertated on 7 July 1903 with “Schadeloosstelling bij vernietiging of onbruikbaarmaking van eigendom door het openbaar gezag”. It deals with financial compensations that should be done by public councils when harming individuals with their “for the best of all” decisions.
During her study she was the first chair woman of the “Vereeniging van Vrouwelijke Studenten” in Leiden (VVSL, 1900). With her mother she was involved in the women’s suffrage movement. In October 1903 she got international attention as the first female public prosecutor acting for the Dutch High Council (Hoge Raad). She became the first Dutch lawyer and prosecutor from 1903 tot 1915 in Den Haag. With her mother she visited and spoke spontaneously on the Internationale Frauenkongress in Berlin (summer 1904): “Die weibliche Advokatur in Holland”.
In 1915 she became the editor of the Dutch “Economist” magazine. She also wrote about socio-economic matters in the cultural magazine “De Gids”. From 1919 to 1922 she was private lecturer at the Utrecht University on practical consequences of theoretical economic issues. She published in English and German economic journals as E.C. van Dorp. In 1922 she solicited for a major academic post at Wageningen, but was refused by the minister of Agriculture as being to militant.
From 25 July 1922 till 15 September 1925 she was member of the Dutch Parliament for the Liberal Party erected by Samuel van Houten (17 Feb 1837 – 14 Oct 1930). The then 85 years old Samuel van Houten, a major Dutch social reformer known by his “Kinderwetje van Van Houten” (1874) that prohibited child labour in factories, and who laid the foundation of the 1st compulsory education Law for children between 6 and 12 years old (since 1-1-1901) was tired of his hard work and left the parliamentary work to his socially active female neighbour Lizzy in Bloemendaal. She and Van Houten thought and acted as one unit.
She pleaded against protectionism and for disarmenant. From 1925 to 1936 she was involved with the Liberal Party “De Vrijheidsbond”. In 1927 she represented the Netherlands in the League of Nations economic conference in Genève (5 may 1927).
After her mothers death in 1935 she moved to England and wrote July 1936 “A simple theory of capital, wages and profit or loss”, published sept 1937 as E.C. van Dorp. In 1939 she decided to go to Turkey to visit the Dutch ambassador Philip Visser, who lost his wife. She arrived 15 March 1940 in Ankara and travelled end 1940 further to Semarang in Java, where her father had been a publisher. She earned her money as teacher economics at the Technical High School of Bandung. In 1941 she planned to go to the USA for further studies. But she was taken prison by the Japanese occupants and send to the concentration camp for women Ambarawa 10 in Banju-Biru, Java. She died of exhaustion on 6 September 1945, after the Japanese capitulation of 2 September and a day after her 74th birthday.
Personal
Lizzy never married, but she in 1901 fell in love with the married politician and from 1912-1932 the head of the central bank of the Netherlands Gerard Vissering (1 March 1865, Leiden – 19 Dec 1937, Bloemendaal). Her friend, the painter Thérèse Schwartze (20 December 1851, Amsterdam – 23 December 1918, Amsterdam) who had similar “in love with a married man” experiences supported her. Lizzy lived with her mother Adriana Elisabeth Verdam (1847-1935) until her death.

Link to Wikipedia