Carel Victor Gerritsen (2 February 1850 – 5 July 1905) was a Dutch politician known for his radical views. The husband of Aletta Jacobs, he was a proponent of open government, fair wages and birth control. He served as an alderman in Amsterdam and a representative in the States of North Holland. He helped found many radical organisations in the Netherlands including the (Neo-Malthusian League), (Radical League) and (Free-thinking Democratic League). Early life Gerritsen was born on 2 February 1850 in Amersfoort, the second son of Hendrik Aloijsius Gerritsen and Elisabeth Brasser Gerritsen (née Rijss). His father was a successful grain trader and the family pious members of the Dutch Reformed Church. After attending primary school, he went to Amsterdam to study at the (Institution for Education in Commerce and Industry), with the intention of returning to help run his father's successful grain trading business. However, before returning to Amersfoort, he decided to travel to Groningen in 1866 to widen his experience. At that time, Groningen was a hotbed for radicalism. At the same time as gaining business skills, Gerritsen also developed his radicalism. Although he probably never met Eduard Douwes Dekker, who visited the city in 1868, Gerritsen was influenced by his ideas. When he returned to Amersfoort, he formally broke with the church in 1869 and joined the freemasons, becoming master of the Haarlem Masonic lodge Vicit Vim Virtus in 1871. Soon after, he moved to London. While there, he met Annie Besant, Charles Bradlaugh and Charles Vickery Drysdale, and gained acquaintance with other radicals. His thought increasingly combined Dekker's thinking, as an atheist, feminist and freemason, with the philosophy of the English clergyman Thomas Robert Malthus and he came to be identified with Neo-Malthusianism. Return to Amersfoort When his father fell ill, Gerritsen returned to Amersfoort in 1874 to run the family business with his brother. He continued to be involved in freemasonry and between 1875 and 1878 was active as a master of ceremonies, treasurer and court master in the Amersfoort lodge named after Jacob van Campen. In 1875, he also started collecting the library for which he became famous. He joined (The Dawn), rising to be treasurer in 1880, and became a member of the editorial staff of the society journal, also named De Dageraad, in 1882. On 20 September 1881, Gerritsen was elected to the Amersfoort council. From the beginning, he was noted for