Jhr. Andries Cornelis Dirk de Graeff (7 August 1872 – 24 April 1957) was a governor-general of the Dutch East Indies and a Dutch minister for foreign affairs.
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Family
Andries Cornelis Dirk de Graeff was a descendant of the De Graeff-family from the Dutch Golden Age.
He was a son of the general consul and Dutch minister in Japan Dirk de Graeff van Polsbroek, and Bonne Elisabeth Royer. De Graeff married jonkvrouw Caroline Angelique van der Wijck, daughter of jonkheer Carel Herman Aart van der Wijck, Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies. They had seven children; a grandson of his is Jan Jaap de Graeff.
Career
De Graeff was an unorthodox man of a Remonstrant background, who was mistakenly assumed to be a CHU sympathizer. Between 1890 and 1895, he studied law at Leiden University, where he met his friends for life, Johan Paul Count of Limburg Stirum and Jhr. Frans Beelaerts van Blokland, and then moved to the Dutch East Indies. De Graeff became secretary official and general secretary of the governor-general Alexander Willem Frederik Idenburg. In 1914 he became a member, and in the beginning of 1917 vice president of the Council of the Dutch East Indies.
After his East Indies stint, de Graeff became envoy in Tokyo (1919-1922) and in Washington (1922-1926), and was governor-general of the Dutch East Indies from 1926–1931. There, de Graeff tried in vain to conduct an ethical regime that catered to moderate nationalists.