become a surgeon. Following this advice, Winkler and his growing family subsequently
moved to Haarlem. Two years later, having completed his training, Winkler opened a practice
in the small village of Nieuwediep. Another four years later, however, he moved his family
back to Haarlem, to ensure his children would obtain a good education.
As he later recalled, one of his first patients in Nieuwediep had been a fisherman who had
been stung by a weever. Intrigued by many more cases of pain caused by these fish, Winkler
decided to learn more about weevers. This prompted him to first set foot in Teylers Museum,
with the aim of consulting books on weevers in the library. This was in the year 1856.
The young surgeon’s thirst for knowledge was apparently not lost on the curator of the
geological collections, van Breda, and one thing led to another.54 In 1858 van Breda asked
Winkler whether he might be interested in studying and describing the fossil specimens from
Oeningen - both those at Teylers Museum and those that formed part of van Breda’s own
personal collection. A prize essay competition concerning a treatise on fossils from this area
had just been announced by the Holland Society. (Recall that van Breda was the Society’s
secretary.) Winkler replied “that [he] had never seen a petrified fish, far less studied one”, but
van Breda was evidently so impressed by the diligence with which Winkler had studied the
weevers, that he did not consider this a problem.55
His doubts having been alleviated, Winkler set to work. Van Breda’s trust in the young
surgeon’s skills proved to be well-founded, as the publication resulting from his efforts was
awarded a gold medal by the Holland Society. With the Foundation’s trustees’ consent, van
Breda subsequently enquired whether Winkler might want to continue studying further parts
of the collection at Teylers. Winkler agreed, and eventually ended up publishing a
comprehensive catalogue of the entire fossil collection. The first volume to this catalogue was
published in 1863, another five had become available by 1868. After that, Winkler still
compiled a further five supplements, detailing what had been added to the collection after
1868, as well as a catalogue of the museum’s collection of minerals.
By the time the second volume to the catalogue of fossils was published, Winkler had been
appointed curator of the geological collections at Teylers Museum. Along with van der
Willigen, Winkler thereby became one of van Breda’s successors after his retirement in 1864.
That same year, Winkler had received an honorary doctorate from the University of
Groningen during the festivities surrounding the university’s 250th anniversary. The exact
reasons for awarding Winkler this title were not recorded, but his work on the catalogue of
Teylers Museum’s fossil collection is sure to have played a part.56 Winkler was immensely
53 Winkler and Heinsius, “Tiberius Comelis Winkler,” 322.
4 On the sequence o f events leading to Winkler becoming involved with Teylers Museum see: Ibid., 322-323.
And also: T.C.Winkler: “Geschiedenis van de palaeontologische collective, 1858 tot 189 , door den
conservator”, c. 1896, Haarlem, ATS, vol. 211, fol. 1-5.
“dat ik nog nooit een versteenden visch had gezien en nog minder bestudeerd”; T.C.Winkler: “Geschiedenis
van de palaeontologische collective, 1858 tot 189_, door den conservator”, c. 1896, Haarlem, ATS, vol. 211, fol.
2.
Stegeman, ‘T.C. Winkler En de Popularisering van de Natuurstudie: Een Onderzoek Naar de Verschillen En
Overeenkomsten Met Het Werk van Heimans En Thijsse,” 12-13.
proud of the honour thus bestowed upon him, and his daughter later recalled how he had
referred to this event as “the apex of his glory”.
Another reason the University of Groningen might have decided to award Winkler a doctorate
was that, by this time, he had built a reputation as an author and a translator of books. His
research on weevers had already resulted in an article for the popular science journal Album
der Natuur, and by 1864 Winkler had published more articles - both popular and scientific -
and written a number of books of his own, aimed at a general audience. They carried
revealing titles such as “The animal world: stories for boys and girls” (De dierenwereld:
verhalen voor jongens en meisjes) which was published in 1861, or “Short natural history of
minerals: a textbook for schools” (Korte natuurlijke historie der delfstoffen: een leer- en
leesboek voor de scholen), which appeared in 1863. Later books of Winkler’s included “The
Vertebrate Animals of the Past” (De Gewervelde dieren van het verleden), published in 1893,
or the “Handbook for the Collector” (Handboek voor den verzamelaer), which carried the
extensive subtitle “A useful book, teaching the assembly of, the ordering of and the care for
all sorts of collections, adapted for young people”.
This last work was published in successive instalments between 1880 and 1884 and, true to its
title, covered a diverse range of possible amateur collections, including collectibles such as
butterflies, minerals, seashells, eggs, stamps and coins. It is particularly revealing in that
Winkler repeatedly stresses the importance of a diligent, disciplined approach to collecting. In
Winkler’s own words, he who wants his collection to last, it to be of any long-term use and
wants to be able to impress his friends with it, “has to set about his task with passion and
diligence, with care and perseverance.”5 Unsurprisingly, this is in no way at odds with his
own work at Teylers Museum or, for that matter, his approach to scientific research in
general. His main contribution to the overall body of science was the impressively detailed
catalogue of Teylers Museum’s collections, which proved to be indispensable in that it
allowed for a far better assessment of individual specimens, both from the collection at
Teylers Museum and other collections. This means that, essentially, Winkler’s scientific work
was descriptive - rather than interpretative - and therefore largely uncontroversial in nature.
Which is not to say that Winkler was not deeply involved in the major controversy shaping
his field at the time: the discussion of Darwin’s Origin o f Species, first published in 1859. On
the contrary: It was Winkler who first translated this book into Dutch. He did so following a
request by Arie Comelis Kruseman, a prominent publisher in Haarlem who was probably
hoping the book’s controversiality meant it would sell many copies, which had indeed proved
to be the case in England.
57 “het glanspunt van zijn roem”; Winkler and Heinsius, “Tiberius Comelis Winkler,” 324.
58 For a bibliography o f Winkler’s publications see: Ibid., 326-329; Stegeman, ‘T.C. Winkler En de
Popularisering van de Natuurstudie: Een Onderzoek Naar de Verschillen En Overeenkomsten Met Het Werk van
Heimans En Thijsse,” 106-111. The exact number o f publications penned by Winkler however is difficult to
ascertain because some o f his books were published in instalments or were simply adapted versions o f long
articles he had published previously. His translations, too, often contain adaptations o f the original work.
“moet beginnen met zijn taak met lust en ijver, met zorg en volharding op te vatten.” Tiberius C. Winkler,
Handboek Voor Den Verzamelaer, vol. 1 (Leiden: A.W. Sijthoff, 1880), 28.
60 Bart Leeuwenburgh, Darwin in domineesland (Rotterdam: Vantilt, 2009), 138.