Royal Zeeland Scientific Society

History of the society

The Zeeland Society of Sciences was founded in 1769 by the city of Vlissingen to promote science in the region. The States of Zeeland, the regional government at the time (when the Dutch Republic was made up of seven united regional governments), welcomed this initiative but wanted to give it a regional character, following the example of the Hollandse Maatschappij van Wetenschappen (the Holland Society of Sciences), which had been founded in 1752. These eighteenth-century scientific societies should be placed in the tradition of the Enlightenment, when science sought to provide greater insight into God and His creation. The Zeeland Society published a series of Treatises to record its research. In conjunction with the knowledge gained and published in these writings, all kinds of object collections found their way to Zeeland: plants, shells, utensils, but also coins and medals, books and instruments.

The Zeeland Society initially had two branches, one in Vlissingen and one in Middelburg. In 1801 it was decided to transfer all of the society's possessions to Middelburg. Here, the collection was exhibited in the newly established Museum Medioburgense, a precursor to the current Zeeland Museum. Under influence of the French period in the Netherlands (1794-1814) the objective of the Zeeland Society changed, with more emphasis being placed on collecting historical objects, such as old manuscripts, coin discoveries and objects belonging to important people.

Around the beginning of the 20th century, the management policy of the museum in Middelburg changed, which led to various collections being loaned to other institutions. For example, the book and manuscript collection and the printed maps went to the Provincial Library of Zeeland and the drawn maps to the National Archives of the Netherlands in The Hague. A large part of the society's collection in the Provincial Library was lost in the bombing of 17 May 1940. The collection of the Zeeland Society of Sciences can still be found in various locations: paintings and historical objects can be found at the Zeeland Museum and the Zeeland Maritiem muZEEum; maps, drawings and prints are held at the Zeeuws Archief; books and manuscripts can be found at the Zeeuwse Bibliotheek, and fossils, shells and minerals, some of which originate from overseas colonies, have been loaned to the Naturalis Biodiversity Centre. The ethnographic objects were on loan to the Rijksmuseum voor Volkenkunde (now the Wereldmuseum Leiden) but were transferred to the Zeeuws Museum in 2007. Most of the archaeological objects are held by the Zeeland Cultural Heritage Foundation.

Facade of Sint Pieter House in Middelburg, where the Royal Zeeland Society of Sciences is located. (C.Hoogendijk/The Cultural Heritage Agency of the Netherlands)

Provenance research

The entire collection of the Zeeland Society of Sciences is available online via the society's collection website. The website provides extensive information about the collections of the Zeeland Society and allows users to access the collection in various ways. For example, there is a world map that clearly shows the areas from which different objects and collection items originate. In addition, the collection has been divided into various sub-collections. For example, there is a sub-collection of ethnographic objects, and the collection of C.J.M. Nagtglas (who collected many objects on the former African Gold Coast) is indexed separately. Detailed information is provided about the origin of each sub-collection and how it ended up in the collection of the Zeeland Society of Sciences. There are also various files and videos containing more information about the collection.

The archives of the Zeeland Society of Sciences are managed by the regional Zeeland Archives. The complete archive up to 1969 is available digitally and can no longer be viewed physically; the more recent archive is managed by the Society itself. The archive is divided into different sections, with the correspondence archive and the archive on the society's collections containing interesting material for provenance research.

The collection website offers many links to relevant archive material and related objects. For various objects, you will find links to documents in the archive that relate to the object in question as well as links to objects that were donated by the same person, for example. The amount of available relevant information varies by object.

In addition to the archive and the collection website, the Zeeland Society of Sciences has published an annual journal since its foundation, which can be read on the website of the Zeeland Journal Database. Initially the yearbooks mainly contained entries for competitions organised by the society. Each yearbook contains various scientific articles on matters relating to the province of Zeeland, as well as the annual reports of all the society's committees and working groups.

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