‘Gentleman-scientist’: Elie van Rijckevorsel and the Dutch overseas effort in exact sciences at the end of the nineteenth century

Abstract

Summary Drawing on archival material in Utrecht and Rotterdam, we examine the geophysical surveys of Indonesia and Brazil carried out by Elie van Rijckevorsel (1845–1928) during the period 1870 to 1890. We pay special attention to the complex interactions among university academics, government administrators and ministers of state, and private, ‘gentlemanly’ specialists. Making an appearance, in addition to Van Rijckevorsel, are the Utrecht polymath Christophorus Hendricus Diedericus Buys Ballot (1817–1890), the colonial and metropolitan astronomer Jean Abraham Chretien Oudemans (1827–1906), colonial geophysicist Pieter Adriaan Bergsma (1830–1882), French-Brazilian astronomer Emmanuel Liais (1826–1900), Colonial Minister Isaac Dignus Fransen van de Putte (1822–1902), and others. The decision of Van Rijckevorsel, an independently wealthy man of learning, to carry out a magnetic survey of the Malay archipelago spurred colonial authorities at The Hague to endow the finest geomagnetic observatory in the tropi...