Henri Hubert van Kol

Henri van Kol, also known as Henri Hubert van Kol (23 May 1852 — 22 August 1925), was a Dutch politician, engineer, and part owner of a coffee plantation in the East Indies. In the first half of the 1870s, he studied hydraulic engineering at Polytechnic School in Delft, during which he was introduced and became increasingly interested in socialism that supported colonialism. Van Kol went to Indonesia where he worked as an engineer, met the woman who became his wife, Nellie van Kol, and they had their children.

He wrote under his own name, and a pseudonym, about his socialistic viewpoints. He became the first socialist in the East Indies. In 1876, he joined the First International. Van Kol was a member of the Social Democratic League (Sociaal Democratische Bond (SDB)), a Dutch socialist political party, and broke away from the party to co-found the Social Democratic Workers' Party in 1894. From 1897 to 1909, van Kol was elected to the States General of the Netherlands (parliament).

Early life, education, and military Hendrikus Hubertus (Henri) van Kol was born in Eindhoven, Netherlands on 23 May 1852 to Maria Anna Schutjes and Christianus Adrianus Hubertus van Kol, a wealthy merchant and hotelier. He was the eldest child with four younger siblings. He had several perspectives about socialism, scientific, utopian idealist, and emotional when acquiring examples of downtrodden workers.