After having had a look at the ‘Nehalennia crew‘ to see what kind of people Farwerck worked with for his periodical, I thought to jump back in time. An under-lighted aspect of Farwerck is his interest in archaeology and local history, but he has been very active in these fields for many years. Some light can possibly be shed when we have a look at the foundation of the Museum Het Gooi en Omstreken, since Farwerck did not live in a vacuum. “Het Gooi” is the area where Farwerck lived. The museum was named after that area and its surroundings (“omstreken”). The short name of the museum was “Goois Museum”. The museum still exists, but is nowadays called Museum Hilversum.
Where the people who contributed to Nehalennia was but a small group, looking into the museum, many more names pop up, so I did only quick investigations.
Let me start with some history of the museum.
Already in 1882 an exhibition of locals findings was held. In 1907 another one was organised and a third one in 1928. It would take until 1932 before serious attempts were made to found an actual museum.
W.J. Rust informed with the famous Dutch archaeologist and director of the principle Dutch museum in the field, het Rijksmuseum van Oudheden (‘National Museum of Antiquities’) Jan Holwerda (1873-1951) about the possibilities. Holwerda brought Rust in contact with E.M. Jaarsma, a local fireplace manufacturer who preserved archaeological findings at the lot where he built a factory. Jaarsma was enthusiastic.
Around that time Farwerck had expressed his disappointment about the lack of a local museum during lectures that he gave. These ideas also lived in the local Rotary Club that Farwerck co-founded in 1928. They got wind of the initiative of Rust and Jaarsma and a cooperation was started.
A few names. Farwerck was appointed chairman of the group to found the museum. Another founder was Herman Heijenbroek (1871-1948), a painter with experience as museum director. The third official founder is Emil Luden (1863-1942), a local businessman and historian.
I can’t find much about W.J. Rust. He must have been quite a man in his time. He wrote several books and was active in historical and archaeological groups, but I haven’t even found his first name or date of birth.
Jaarsma then. His full name was Everhardus Mennus Jaarsma and he lived from 1845 until 1917. As mentioned, he had a fireplace factory (founded by his father) and his interest in archaeology made that findings on the plot where he built a factory were preserved. That was not something usual in these days.
Jaarsma’s wife C.A. Jaarsma-Hesta shared her husband’s interest. She was the first secretary of the society that was founded to start the museum.
Quite some people appear to have been active in the initiative. R.W.C. baron van Boetzelaer (1899-1979) not only created the first radio connection between the Netherlands and the Dutch Indies, but he also was an avid collector of books and plates. Just as with Rust a collection is names after this baron. The baron was also part of the editorial board of the Tussen Vecht en Eem periodical of historical groups started in 1970, just as other founders of the museum, such as O.L. van der Aa (another collector).
A noteworthy name is that of K.J. Perk, a notary after his father and a grandson of the famous Albertus Perk (1795-1880) after whom another local historical group was named. K.J. possessed a part of his grandfather’s collection.
Jacob Samuel Witsen Elias (1898-1977) was a literary scholar and art historian who wrote many books.
About L.A. Boeré I haven’t found much safe that he was a medical doctor.
W.J. Voogsgeerd was a teacher (after his father) and school director (also after his father).
Gerard van Mesdag (1863-1939) owned the cocoa factory Van Houten (whose logo was designed by Stephan Schlesinger, who also designed Farwerck’s first book cover and his Masonic ex libris).
Corstiaan Louis Heek (1878-1941) collected old books (another collector!) and was an author about local history (autodidact).
Gerardus Gillis Pekelharing (1845-1917) was a local politician.
I ran into another something remarkable. On October 6th 1933, a newspaper mentions a group of people meeting to see if creating a local museum is possible. A few names are mentioned that we not see before, such as local politician P. Kuijper, engineer W. Burdet, engineer J. Heek and… “W. Farwerck”! That could very well be Carl Wilhelm.
Nothing directly to do with the former, but as we saw in the biography Farwerck also knew the archaeologist known as “Kapitein Bellen”. Many years later he was friends with Siem Pos, a man whom I can’t find much information about, but he led a local archaeological group and he appears to have has books of Farwerck in his possession that are otherwise unknown to me.
Nothing groundbreaking, but here we have another look into Farwerck’s ‘circle’.