L. P. de Bussy was the Director of the Afdeeling Handelsmuseum of the Koninklijke Vereeniging Koloniaal Instituut in Amsterdam in the late 1920s and early 1930s, and the signatory of the circular letter of 5 May 1930 by which sample H.M. no. 1607 of Atjeh-turpentine was distributed to the members of the Vereeniging van Vernis- en Verffabrikanten en -Handelaren in Nederland. As the Director of the Afdeeling Handelsmuseum, de Bussy was the senior officer responsible for the Koloniaal Instituut’s commodity-evaluation programme, and his signature on the circular of 5 May 1930 — W. g. L. P. DE BUSSY, Directeur der Afdeeling Handelsmuseum ten Koloniaal Instituut — is the principal documentary evidence of the institutional authorship of the Atjeh-terpentijn evaluation of 1930.
The Circulaire of 5 May 1930
The Circulaire of 5 May 1930 — preserved as Bijlage II of the Atjeh-terpentijn pamphlet — is addressed Aan de leden van de Vereeniging van Vernis- en Verffabrikanten en -Handelaren in Nederland and signed by de Bussy. It explains that, in 1924, the Afdeeling Handelsmuseum had consulted with the board of the V.V.V.F. on the quality of Atjeh-turpentine; that the exploitation of the Atjeh pine forests had since been converted from an experimental to a definitive enterprise at Baleq; and that the factory-scale product since October 1928 could now be evaluated against the standard of American and French turpentines. The circular encloses sample H.M. no. 1607 and the chemical data on samples 1504, 1553 and 1607, notes the price of f 22 per 50 kg, and refers readers to the Vierde Afdeeling of the Nederlandsche Handel-Maatschappij at Amsterdam for further commercial details.
Other activities
The list of Berichten van de Afdeeling Handelsmuseum preserved at the back of the Atjeh-terpentijn pamphlet records that de Bussy was the author of Bericht No. 1 (Enkele nieuwe gegevens over Java-jute (Hibiscus cannabinus L.), 1920) — the first publication in the series. His position as the author of the first Bericht and the Director of the Afdeeling Handelsmuseum by 1930 indicates a continuous institutional career at the Koloniaal Instituut from the early 1920s through the early 1930s. Several photographs in the Atjeh-terpentijn pamphlet are credited opn. L. P. de Bussy — photograph by L. P. de Bussy — indicating that de Bussy personally visited the Baleq enterprise and the Pinus Merkusii forests of Atjeh in the course of his duties.
Significance
De Bussy’s significance in the documentary record of colonial Aceh is as the institutional author — in his capacity as Director of the Afdeeling Handelsmuseum — of the Atjeh-terpentijn evaluation of 1930. His signature on the circular of 5 May 1930 is the principal documentary evidence of the institutional authorship of the evaluation, and his photographs of the Baleq enterprise and the Pinus Merkusii forests are the principal published images of the early factory-scale production of Indonesian turpentine.
See Also
- Afdeeling Handelsmuseum
- Koninklijke Vereeniging Koloniaal Instituut
- Atjeh-terpentijn (Spoor, 1930)
- Circulaire of 5 May 1930 to the V.V.V.F.
- Baleq
- Pinus Merkusii
- W. Spoon
- D. B. Spoelstra
- M. A. van Royen
- Nederlandsche Handel-Maatschappij
- Vereeniging van Vernis- en Verffabrikanten en -Handelaren in Nederland
- 1930
Source
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. 29–30 (Bijlage II — Circulaire).