Goswin de Stassart
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Goswin Joseph Augustin baron de Stassart (Mechelen, 2 September 1780-Brussels, 16 October 1854) was a Dutch-Belgian politician.
Stassart studied law in Paris. In 1804 he became Auditor in the French State Council, in 1805 he became Intendant in Tirol, and in 1807 he served in the French army in Prussia. In 1810 he became Prefect of the Departments of the Vaucluse and in 1811 of the Estuaries of the Meuse. After the second Austrian restoration he lived on his estate near Namur, until the city of Namur in 1822 sent him to the second chamber of parliament of the Netherlands, where he belonged to the opposition.
After the outbreak of the Belgian revolution in Brussels in September 1830 he was among the delegates of the southern provinces, which were summoned to the Hague. In 1831 he returned to Belgium, where he became a member of the National Congress and a member of the Provisional Government as well as the Senate. In this position he served seven parliamentary sessions as president of the parliament. In 1834 he was appointed by the government as the governor of Brabant. However in 1838 he had to resign both, since he had openly broken with the Belgian episcopacy as he became the first Grandmaster mason of the Grand Orient of Belgium in 1833. In 1840 he became for a short time envoy in Turin. In 1841 he resigned as Grandmaster, and he died on 16 October 1854 in Brussels.
