“On his great flight to world fame, which he never actively sought, but which simply came to
him, he inadvertently took Teyler’s Laboratory and all that accompanies it (including the
entire Foundation) under his wing so that all would share in his world fame.”184
Fontein’s case can indeed be argued. Renowned colleagues of Lorentz’ such as Einstein or du
Bois for instance came to Haarlem and to Teylers because Lorentz worked there. As Lorentz
noted in his 1917 annual report, “Prof. A. Einstein from Berlin and Prof. H. Du Bois showed
their interest in the laboratory on their visits.”185 Other well-known scientists include van der
Pol’s visitor Appleton.
Yet at the same time, Kamerlingh Onnes’ remark about the Teyler Foundation that Fontein
referred to was the only reference made to this Haarlem institution in a total of 6 speeches
held in Lorentz’ honour during the festivities to mark the 50th anniversary of his doctorate in
1925.186 This might have had something to do with the fact that these festivities were held at
the University of Leiden, but that in itself is not insignificant: they were not held in Haarlem.
The scientific community obviously still associated Lorentz with Leiden, more than with
Haarlem.
Lorentz himself in fact regretted he had not been able to do more for the Teyler Foundation.
At the height of the discussions on the Foundation’s finances in May 1926, he summarised his
own view of the previous one and a half decades. As the minutes of the meeting read:
“With regards to himself Prof. Lorentz states that his initial plans have not been fully
implemented. Speaker [Lorentz] hasn’t done for Teyler what he had wanted to. Numerous
circumstances prevented him from doing so. Leiden did not let him go, the War claimed a lot
of his time, as did peace. Then came the calculations for the Zuiderzee, etc. etc. Yet there is
also reason to be satisfied.” 187
Before summarising Lorentz’ ensuing account of everything that he thought did go well -I
above all Lorentz was proud of what the conservators had achieved - the trustee taking the
minutes of the meeting still recorded verbatim Lorentz’ very brief overall verdict of his tenure
at Teylers, which, considering that Lorentz passed away less than two years later, has a final
ring to it: “Het is wel aardig gegaan”, which can be translated roughly as “It didn’t go badly.”.
184 “Op zijne groote vlucht naar wereldberoemdheid, welke hij nooit gezöcht heeft, doch die hem eenvoudig te
gemoet is komen waaien, heeft hij onwillekeurig Teyler’s Laboratorium met al zijn aanhang (waaronder de
geheele Stichting) onder zijn arm medegenomen op dat dit alles in zijne wereldvermaardheid zoude deelen.”:
“Directienotulen”, 17.02.1928, Haarlem, ATS, vol. 15.
185 “Prof. A. Einstein te Berlijn en Prof. H. Du Bois toonden bij bezoeken hunne belangstelling in het
laboratorium.”: “Jaarverslag 1916-1917”, 07.04.1917, Haarlem, ATS, vol. 191. This was one o f at least two
confirmed instances in which Einstein came to Leiden. The first was in 1911 (see below).
At least this was the only time its name appears in the published versions o f these speeches: W. de Sitter et
al., “Huldiging van Professor Lorentz,” Physica: Nederlandsch Tijdschrift voor Natuurkunde 6, no. 1 (1926): 1-
21.
1 7 “Op zieh zelven komende verklaart Prof. Lorentz dat zijn plannen van vroeger helaas niet in elken deele
verwezenlijkd zijn. Spreker heeft niet voor Teyler gedaan, wat hij had willen doen. Tal van omstandigheden
hebben hem dat belet. Leiden liet hem niet los, de oorlog vroeg veel van zijn tijd even als de vrede. Toen
kwamen de berekeningen voor de Zuiderzee enz. enz. Toch is er ook reden tot tevredenheid.”: “Directienotulen”,
14.05.1926, Haarlem, ATS, vol. 15.
5. The Museum Next Door
Let us briefly summarise some points that so far have transpired from the description of
Lorentz’ activities as curator of the Teyler Foundation’s laboratory. Firstly, he was taken on
largely because of the enthusiasm of one trustee, Jan Adriaan Fontein, and the mediation of
another eminent scientist, Johannes Bosscha. Secondly, Lorentz accepted the job in Haarlem
at least in part because he was dissatisfied with his situation at the University of Leiden.
Thirdly, the Foundation’s budget was stretched to the limit from the very beginning of
Lorentz’ tenure, and this situation became painfully acute after the Foundation experienced a
variety of financial setbacks. Fourthly, this decline in the laboratory’s fortunes was amplified
by the rise of universities as research institutes, which was closely connected to the structural
changes scientific research was experiencing. Research increasingly involved a team effort
and sensitive, expensive measuring devices.
Thus far one could therefore conclude that hiring Lorentz was essentially a fateful attempt by
the Teyler Foundation to maintain the position it had held throughout most of the 19 century,
as the centre of Dutch experimental science. Two other aspects besides the Foundation’s
financial woes and Haarlem’s increasingly peripheral status without a university contributed
to this ill fate, i.e. the Foundation’s laboratory being taken less and less seriously within the
scientific community: firstly, even if the funds had been available it would have been almost
impossible to expand the laboratory building to a scale comparable to university laboratories,
simply because the laboratory was in the middle of Haarlem and adjacent to Teylers Museum.
And secondly, despite his brilliance and immensely high reputation Lorentz did not possess
the charisma needed to compensate for Haarlem’s peripheral status.
As a result, by the time Lorentz passed away the Foundation was selling off those prints and
drawings from its collection that it owned in duplicate in order to raise money.
This finally turns the spotlight back onto the museum, and is in fact remarkable - although not
so much because of what was being sold, but because of what the Foundation was not selling:
the trustees did not decide to sell any of the historical scientific instruments - which fell under
Lorentz’ purview as curator - from their collection in order to gain some fresh income. This is
even more noteworthy than the fact that they didn’t sell any of the books from the library,
coins from the numismatic collection, or fossils and minerals from the geological collection,
because all of these were either unique or could still serve for research purposes. The
instruments were all unique too of course, whereas the duplicate drawings and prints were
obviously not - but many of the instruments were no longer of any use in the laboratory, or
would clearly never be again; they no longer had any practical value. Given that the
Foundation’s predominant aim was clearly to support research, it is therefore easily
imaginable that someone at the time might have come up with the argument that the old and
useless instruments should be the first to be sold from any of the collections in order to
guarantee that further research could be funded by the Foundation.