Samenvatting

David Simons is on the list of the legal scholars that helped shape the early history of (local) administrative sciences in the Netherlands, which was dominated by the legal approach to local government. He held the first Dutch chair in Public Administration in Rotterdam, which was left by Gerrit van Poelje in 1933 and then taken over by Adriaan Koelma (first as a lecturer, and then as a professor from 1946). His work was carried out at the intersection of administrative law and Public Administration. This essay focuses on three publications: his Leiden dissertation on municipal companies from 1939, his inaugural lecture on the relationship between administration and administrators from 1948 and his preliminary advice on the relationship between administrative law and Public Administration from 1955. From 1957 onwards, he was professor of constitutional and administrative law in Rotterdam. As a government commissioner, he also played an important role in the revision of the Dutch Constitution.