V. Volkert Simon Maarten van der Willigen (II): Curator in Haarlem
1. On the Job
Having now illustrated how Teylers Museum and the world around it had changed over the
years preceding van der Willigen’s arrival in Haarlem, we can turn to his activities during his
curatorship.
Unfortunately, very little material that could throw some light on the precise reasons for his
appointment has been preserved. However, taking into account all that was said above, it
should not come as much of a surprise that the trustees chose van der Willigen, either: he was
eminently well qualified in that he had an excellent track record as one of the country’s best
physicists, espousing a modem methodology; he was familiar with one of the country’s better
collections of scientific instruments; and he was available because of the restructuring of the
Athenaeum in Deventer.
The position was definitely sought after, though, as the following episode illustrates. Van
Breda did not only resign as director of Teylers Museum in 1864, but also as secretary of the
Holland Society and director of its natural history cabinet. His successor at the Society was
Edouard Henri von Baumhauer, professor of chemistry and pharmaceutics in Amsterdam.
Shortly after his appointment he submitted a request to the Directors of the Holland Society,
which was heavily discussed at a sequence of meetings. The details both of von Baumhauer’s
request and of the ensuing discussions have not been preserved - all documents pertaining to
this matter were removed from the Society’s archives. The only thing that is clear is that von
Baumhauer’s request was related to van der Willigen’s appointment. More to the point, he
had evidently been hoping that he would succeed van Breda at Teylers as well and - crucially
- that he would be able to use the laboratory facilities there to continue with his chemical
research. 07 This gives one an idea just how much of a gem the research facilities at Teylers
were considered amongst researchers at the time. It is clear that the post of curator was
therefore highly sought after. Recall also how this was before laboratories were established at
HBS schools all over the country. University laboratories were not as well equipped as the
laboratory at Teylers, either. They only surpassed the facilities in Haarlem at the beginning of
the 20th century - a point to which we shall return in the next chapter.
Incidentally, the Society’s cabinet was dissolved soon after van Breda had left - it had
evidently been left in some neglect for a while and in 1866 most of the specimens it housed
were sold to Artis, a natural history society that had been established in Amsterdam some
decades before and gained particular prominence through the publicly accessible zoo it ran.208
On this request and what it elicited see: Johan A. Bierens de Haan, De Hollandsche Maatschappij der
Wetenschappen, 1752-1952 (Haarlem: Tjeenk Willink & Zoon, 1970), 109-111.
On Artis see: Donna C. Mehos, Science and Culture fo r Members Only: The Amsterdam Zoo Artis in the
Nineteenth Century (Amsterdam University Press, 2006). On the dispersal o f the Holland Society’s cabinet see:
Much like the separation of the geological collection and the scientific instrument collection
at Teylers, the dispersal of the Holland Society’s cabinet is indicative of the changing status
of collections, both for researchers and for the lay public. Both van Breda and van Marum had
been in charge of a set of collections that essentially spanned the entire natural sciences, i.e.
physics, chemistry, natural history and geology. In a sense they were therefore in charge of
one, large, all-encompassing “encyclopaedic” museum which happened to be spread out over
two venues (or three, if one sees the Teyler Foundation’s laboratory as distinct from Teylers
Museum) and which happened to be financed by two institutions. Van der Willigen and
Winkler, on the other hand, were entrusted with running a specialised research collection that
was restricted to their own research within a specialised field of science. This is worth
keeping in mind when trying to understand how the collection of scientific instruments in
particular was perceived in relation to other collections.
2. Van der Willigen’s Work in Haarlem
As for van der Willigen, once he got the job at Teylers it must have become clear to all that,
just like van Baumhauer, he was interested first and foremost in performing experimental
research. Generally speaking he pursued exactly the same lines of research he had already
devoted time to in Deventer. The first summer after his appointment at Teylers he even
returned to the north of the Netherlands, to Twello, to complete a series of experiments he had
begun there.209 He also brought some instruments to Haarlem with him from Deventer. At
least one set of diffraction gratings by Nobert was acquired by the Teyler Foundation from the
Deventer Society for Physics and Chemistry.210 Needless to say, all his experiments were
performed with huge precision and attention to possible sources of inaccuracies and errors.
One area of research he was evidently particularly intrigued by was optics.211 Recall how his
dissertation with Kaiser had already covered the aberration of light. His first project at Teylers
was to establish the exact wavelength of all visible sunlight, much as Angstrom did. He also
published a graph of the visible portion of the solar spectrum, apparently achieving higher
precision than Fraunhofer had. Having completed this work van der Willigen turned to the
measurement of the refractive indices of various materials and solutions, paying special
attention in how far they were influenced by the translucent materials’ temperature. His aim
was thereby to deduce the precise correlation of the wavelength of light and a material’s
refractive index.
Bert Sliggers and Marijke H. Besselink, eds., Het verdwenen museum: natuurhistorische verzamelingen 1750-
1850 (Haarlem: Teylers Museum, 2002), 127-129.
209 Volkert Simon Maarten van der Willigen, “Mémoire sur la détermination des longueurs d’onde du spectre
solaire,” vol. 1, Archives du Musée Teyler (Harlem: Les Héritiers Loosjes, 1866), 4-5.
210 Turner, The Practice o f Science in the Nineteenth Century: Teaching and Research Apparatus in the Teyler
Museum, 152-153.
211 Unless otherwise indicated, the following summary o f van der Willigen’s research activities at Teylers is
based largely on: Bakhuyzen, “Nekrolog: Volkert Simon Maarten van der Willigen,” 101-106.