The Atjehsche Handelmaatschappij (“Atjeh Trading Company”) was the trading house established in 1902 by the consolidation in a separate company of the Atjeh interests of the Padangsche Handelmaatschappij — itself founded in 1894 by the firm J. T. van Leeuwen & Co of Padang, which had traded with the Atjehnese before that date — and described by author Joh. Langhout as having done even pioneer work (pionierswerk) for the economic revival of the province, with its head office at Koeta Radja and branches at Sabang, Lho Seumawè, Tapa Toean, Langsa and Sigli.
From the Padangsche house
The firm J. T. van Leeuwen & Co. at Padang had driven trade with the Atjehnese before 1894; in that year the Padangsche Handelmaatschappij was founded, which “achatte in 1902 den tijd gekomen de zaken op Atjeh in een zelfstandige afzonderlijke maatschappij te consolideeren” — judged in 1902 the time come to consolidate the affairs in Atjeh in an independent separate company, whereby rightly the expectation could be cherished that the trading terrain in Atjeh would be more intensively worked. The mother company supported the new company not only by participating in the capital but also by personal cooperation: one of the directors of the Padangsche Handelmaatschappij, the heer F. W. S. H. Tengbergen Jr., became director of the Atjehsche Handelmaatschappij and still fulfilled that function when Langhout wrote; the daily direction of the affairs was entrusted at the foundation to the co-director, the heer J. W. Kamerling; it passed to the heer A. Knottenbelt Jr., appointed director in 1911, assisted by the heer J. F. Keulemans, into whose hands the General Meeting of Shareholders in 1921 laid the co-directorship.
The business
With a brisk staff of European personnel as chief officials, the whole of Atjeh was worked from the head office at Koeta Radja with branch offices at Sabang, Lho Seumawe, Tapa Toean, Langsa, Sigli “etc.”, while further establishments were being prepared at other places. In the same Tapa Toean the company had for years possessed a kapok-press establishment (“kapokpersinrichting”) exporting more than 300,000 KG per year — long before, under Governor Van Sluys, the patchouli-oil distillery was added. Langhout closes: “Ook de Atjehsche Handelmaatschappij heeft op het gebied van den handel in belangrijke mate medegewerkt om Atjeh te maken tot wat het thans is en naar gehoopt wordt in de toekomst nog worden zal” (“Also the Atjehsche Handelmaatschappij has cooperated importantly in the field of trade to make Atjeh into what it now is, and what it is hoped it will still become in the future”).
See Also
Source
Vijftig jaren economische staatkunde in Atjeh, by Joh. Langhout (The Hague: N.V. Boekhandel v/h W. P. van Stockum & Zoon, 1923), pp. 85, 120, 179, 185–186.