Willem Banning
Willem Banning (Makkum, 21 February 1888 – Driebergen, 7 January 1971) was a Dutch theologian, philosopher, sociologist and politician, who played an important role in Dutch 20th-century politics. Personal life Banning was born the son of Jan Banning, a herring fisherman, and Aafke Canrinus. Thanks to his school teacher in elementary school he was able to attend a teachers college (Rijksnormaalschool) in Haarlem, where he received his teachers certificate in 1907. During his study he became involved in the movement to politically organise the college students, and in publishing a periodical, the Kweekelingenbode, of which he became the editor in 1908. He was also active in the Kweekelingen Geheelonthoudersbond (a temperance society). He was hired as a home teacher by a Hoorn notary public to educate his son in the years 1907-1909. During this period he came under the influence of a local clergyman with socialist sympathies, J. Th. Tenthoff, who introduced him to the circle around the Christian Socialist periodical De Blijde Wereld. He also met his future wife, the teacher Henriëtta Johanna Wilhelmina Schoemaker, whom he married on 9 October 1915. They had three daughters. After a few stints as an elementary-school teacher in the period 1909-1911 his