Afdeeling Handelsmuseum

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tagsorganization, colonial-institute, research-department, amsterdam, dutch, 20th-century, colonial, commodity-research, aceh, terpentijn, museum, koloniaal-instituut, berichten, research, trades-museum
aliasesAfdeeling Handelsmuseum, Afdeeling Handelsmuseum van de Kon. Ver. Koloniaal Instituut, the Commercial Museum Department, the Handelsmuseum, Trades Museum Division, Handelsmuseum, Afdeeling Handelsmuseum van de Kon. Vereeniging Koloniaal Instituut

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The Afdeeling Handelsmuseum — the Commercial Museum Department — was the department of the Koninklijke Vereeniging Koloniaal Instituut charged with the evaluation and promotion of colonial commodities. The Afdeeling Handelsmuseum maintained a Scheikundig Laboratorium (Chemical Laboratory) in which the chemical composition and properties of colonial products were investigated, and it published the results of its investigations in the Berichten van de Afdeeling Handelsmuseum van de Kon. Vereeniging Koloniaal Instituut. The Afdeeling Handelsmuseum is the institutional author of the Atjeh-terpentijn pamphlet of 1930 and the institutional home of the chemical and commercial evaluation of Atjeh-turpentine.

The Scheikundig Laboratorium

The Atjeh-terpentijn pamphlet records that the chemical investigation of the Atjeh-turpentine samples was undertaken in het Scheikundig Laboratorium van de Afdeeling Handelsmuseum — in the Chemical Laboratory of the Afdeeling Handelsmuseum. The Laboratory also collaborated with the Rijksbureau voor Onderzoek van Handelswaren (National Bureau for the Investigation of Commercial Goods) at ‘s-Gravenhage, which conducted the uitvoerig (extensive) investigation of the first sample received (H.M. no. 1504). The results of the chemical investigations are preserved in Tables III, IV, V and VI of the pamphlet — the principal published scientific record of the chemical composition of Atjeh-turpentine.

The H.M. monster numbering

The Atjeh-terpentijn pamphlet records that the Afdeeling Handelsmuseum maintained a system of H.M. monster (H.M. sample) numbering — by which individual samples of colonial commodities were catalogued and referenced. The three Atjeh-turpentine samples evaluated in the 1930 pamphlet were:

  • H.M. no. 1504 — received in December 1929 directly from the Baleq enterprise.
  • H.M. no. 1553 — drawn from a January 1930 Amsterdam shipment by the Nederlandsche Handel-Maatschappij.
  • H.M. no. 1607 — an original tin from the April 1930 shipment per m.s. Poelau Roebiah.

The H.M. monster numbering system is the principal cataloguing system of the Afdeeling Handelsmuseum, and the three Atjeh-turpentine samples are the principal physical objects on which the 1930 evaluation rests.

The Berichten series

The Afdeeling Handelsmuseum published the results of its investigations in the Berichten van de Afdeeling Handelsmuseum van de Kon. Vereeniging Koloniaal Instituut — the series of which the Atjeh-terpentijn pamphlet of 1930 is No. 57. The Berichten were extracted from De Indische Mercuur and published separately by J. H. de Bussy of Amsterdam. The list of Berichten preserved at the back of the pamphlet records the breadth of the series — from Java-jute to Atjeh-turpentine, from gambir to cajeput oil — and identifies the principal authors: de Bussy, Spoon, Spoelstra, van Royen, A. Reclaire, J. Temminck Groll, E. C. Jul. Mohr, A. W. K. de Jong, and others.

The Director and staff

The Director of the Afdeeling Handelsmuseum in 1930 was L. P. de Bussy — the signatory of the circular letter of 5 May 1930. The chemical investigations were undertaken by Dr. D. B. Spoelstra (fractional distillation), Mej. M. A. van Royen (testing against the draft Ontwerp-normaalblad V 597), and — at the Rijksbureau voor Onderzoek van Handelswaren — by the staff of that Bureau. The principal author of the Atjeh-terpentijn pamphlet was Ir. W. Spoon of the Afdeeling Handelsmuseum.

Significance

The Afdeeling Handelsmuseum’s significance in the historiography of colonial Aceh is as the institutional author of the Atjeh-terpentijn evaluation of 1930 — the principal contemporary monograph on the early factory-scale production of Indonesian turpentine. The Afdeeling Handelsmuseum’s Scheikundig Laboratorium, H.M. monster numbering, and Berichten series are the principal documentary instruments by which the evaluation and promotion of Atjeh-turpentine was undertaken, and the Afdeeling Handelsmuseum’s collaboration with the Rijksbureau voor Onderzoek van Handelswaren and the Vereeniging van Vernis- en Verffabrikanten en -Handelaren in Nederland illustrates the network of institutions through which colonial commodities were evaluated in the late 1920s and early 1930s.

Account from Verkenningen in Atjeh (1923)

The Afdeeling Handelsmuseum — the Trades Museum Division — was the division of the Kon. Vereeniging Koloniaal Instituut in Amsterdam responsible for the Berichten (Reports) series, of which Ir. W. Spoon’s Atjeh Patchouli-Olie is No. 71. The Handelsmuseum combined the functions of a commercial museum — collecting and displaying samples of Netherlands-Indies products — with those of a research laboratory, where the chemical constants of those products were determined and a market judgement was obtained from European buyers.

The Method

The method of the Handelsmuseum is illustrated by Spoon’s Atjeh Patchouli-Olie: six sample oils were received from Atjeh in 1931 and early 1932; they were analysed in the laboratory for soortelijk gewicht (specific gravity), brekingsindex (refractive index), draaiing (optical rotation), zuurgetal (acid value), estergetal (ester value) and solubility in 90 vol.% alcohol; and they were then sent to perfume manufacturers in the Netherlands, Germany, England and France for a market judgement. The combination of laboratory analysis and perfumer’s bench is the model of the Berichten series’ practical empiricism.

Significance

The Afdeeling Handelsmuseum is the principal institutional vehicle for the commercial research of the Kon. Vereeniging Koloniaal Instituut, and its Berichten series is the principal printed source for the commercial chemistry of the Netherlands-Indies in the inter-war period. Its role in the development of the patchouli-oil industry in Atjeh is the type-case of its method.

Source

Atjeh Patchouli-Olie, by Ir. W. Spoon. Berichten van de Afdeeling Handelsmuseum van de Kon. Vereeniging Koloniaal Instituut, No. 71. Overgedrukt uit De Indische Mercuur van 20 July 1932. Amsterdam: Druk J. H. de Bussy.

See Also

Sources

Atjeh-terpentijn: tegenwoordige kwaliteit en nieuwe beoordeelingen, by Ir. W. Spoon, Berichten van de Afdeeling Handelsmuseum van de Koninklijke Vereeniging Koloniaal Instituut No. 57, Amsterdam: J. H. de Bussy, 1930, pp. 1–2, 9–11, 29–35.

Verkenningen in Atjeh, by Dr. R. Broersma (De Locomotief, October 1923), passim; Atjeh Patchouli-Olie, by Ir. W. Spoon (1932), for the Koloniaal Instituut and Handelsmuseum.

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