Cornelis Lely
Cornelis Lely (born September 23, 1854 in Amsterdam , † January 22, 1929 in 's-Gravenhage ) was a Dutch hydraulic engineer and governor of Suriname from 1902 to 1905 . He was a graduate engineer from what was then Delft University of Technology . The same TH awarded him an honorary doctorate in 1907 .
biography
Youth and Studies
Cornelis Lely was the seventh child of Jan Lely and Adriana van Houten . He was born on the Leidsegracht in Amsterdam and this is where he spent most of his youth. He came from a liberal Protestant family . His father was a seed dealer and often took his children with him on his travels. In his youth he was able to observe the construction of the North Sea Canal and the Oranjesluizen .
From 1866 to 1871 Lely attended the HBS on Keizersgracht . Four years later, in 1875, he graduated from the Delft University of Technology with a degree in civil engineering . After graduating, he took up a temporary position as a surveyor. He then got a job as an engineer at the Ministerie van Verkeer en Waterstaat , where he assisted Minister Johannes Tak van Poortvliet with his canal law ("Kanalenwet"). In September 1886 he became an assistant to the Zuiderzeevereeniging , an association that winning and Einpoldern the Zuiderzee aimed. He carried out his own research and considerations on the invasion, which were reflected in eight reports. In 1891 he finalized his plans, which he implemented as Minister many years later after the storm surge of 1916 . According to his plans, the Bergsche Maas was dug and he promoted the expansion of the railway.
As a minister
At the age of 35 he became Minister for Water, Trade and Economics in the Van Tienhoven cabinet (1891-1894). Lely was Minister van Waterstaat in two more governments : in the Pierson cabinet (1897–1901) and in the Cort van der Linden cabinet (1913–1918). In 1898 he steered the decree for the Noordoosterlocaalspoorweg-Maatschappij (in German about: Regional Railway Company Northeast) through parliament. In between he was governor of Suriname from 1902 to 1905 . During his time as governor, he supported the initially private plans for the construction of the Lawabahn .
In August 1913, Lely became a minister for the third time. The polders of the Zuiderzee are finally included in the government program through his initiative, after having been repeatedly rejected by the previous cabinets.
Other public tasks
Lely also held other public positions. In addition to his ministerial posts, he was a member of the Tweeden Kamer (between 1894 and 1922), a member of the Eersten Kamer (1910-1913), a member of the regional parliament of the province of Zuid-Holland (1909-1910) and a member of the city council and alderman of The Hague ( 1908-1913). Between 1902 and 1905 he was governor of Suriname .
Appreciations
His scientific achievements were recognized in 1895 with his appointment to the Royal Netherlands Academy of Sciences (Institute for Physics), and in 1905 with an honorary doctorate from the Technical University of Delft .
Private life
In 1881 he married the then 19-year-old Mies van Rinsum , whom he had met five years earlier at the wedding of his brother Dirk . Two years later their first son Jan was born. Five more children followed. However, one was stillborn and another died at the age of two after returning from a hospital stay in Marienbad .
During his time as minister he lived at Alexanderstraat 13 in The Hague. In 1922, after retiring from political life, he moved to Neuhuyskade Street in the Haagse Hout district and made trips to Egypt and Jerusalem . His seventieth birthday in 1924 was officially announced in the newspaper and there was a reception attended by the incumbent Minister van Waterstaat.
In the fall of 1927, at the invitation of the Netherland-America Foundation , Lely and his daughter Bep went to the United States for a month to give a series of lectures on the occasion of the foundation's establishment.
Lely died in The Hague in 1929 at the age of 74. He was found lying on the floor next to his desk. There he wanted to read a brochure about the Amsterdam-Rhine Canal beforehand . He was buried in the central cemetery Kerkhoflaan . He could no longer experience the first drainage ( Wieringermeer ) in 1930 and the closure of the Zuiderzeedamm in 1932.
Lely is the great grandfather of the writer Charlotte Mutsaers .
Lely's plans
Even if the draining of the Zuidersee has been discussed for hundreds of years, it was Cornelis Lely who created the first technically feasible plan. It also included solutions to problems such as the drainage of the IJssel river . The drainage of the Zuiderzee has long been seen as an imponderable adventure and, even after Lely presented its plans, the pros and cons were discussed for a long time. The focus here was on the economic effects that can be expected on the fishery and what costs and risks the project would cause.
But only Lely was able to realize these plans because he was not only an engineer , but also a capable politician. Although there was still considerable social resistance when he included the drainage in the government program in 1913, two things ultimately contributed to its silence: the First World War caused a food shortage, which made it necessary to gain additional farmland as a countermeasure . Another turning point came with the storm surge of 1916 . It was now generally recognized how naive it is to ignore the dangers of the sea. Two years later, in 1918, Lely passed the framework law on the Zuiderzee through parliament.
Lely's plans included shortening the coast. He argued that the defense against the sea was only as strong as its weakest link, and with the many hundreds of kilometers of coastline on the Zuiderzee, it would be more difficult to maintain an effective water barrier than a shorter one. Lely's view was later used in the Delta Works , where the Zeeland coast was shortened by a large part.
Today's honors
monument
On September 23, 1954, on the occasion of his hundredth birthday, Queen Juliana unveiled a monument to Cornelis Lely (sculptor: Mari Andriessen ). It stands on the spot where the Afsluitdijk was closed in 1932. A cast of this monument stands on a 30 meter high basalt column in the village of Lelystad .
Place names
The places Lelystad in the province of Flevoland and Lelydorp and the Lelygebergte plateau in Suriname are named after him, as is the Gemaal Lely pumping station in Wieringermeer . In Amsterdam, a road bears his name, the Cornelis Lelylaan , as does the Amsterdam Lelylaan train station .
Works by Lely
- Plan to complete the Zuiderzee
- Planning for the construction of the railway in Suriname
- Founding of the Staatsmijnen in Limburg
- Creation of the Scheveningen fishing port
literature
- Willem van der Ham: Verover mij dat land. Lely en de Zuiderzeewerken. Boom, Amsterdam 2007, ISBN 978-90-8506-437-4 .
- K. Jansma: Lely. Bedwinger of the Zuiderzee. HJ Paris, Amsterdam 1954.
- Cordula Rooijendijk: Waterwolven. A divorcee from stormvloeden, dijkenbouwers en droogmakers. Atlas, Amsterdam 2013.
- Armand Snijders: De flop van Lely. In: Parbode. No. 24, April 2008, pp. 44-45. (via the Lawabahn in Suriname)
Web links
- Dr. C. Lely , Parlement & Politiek
- LELY, Cornelis (1854-1929) , Instituut voor Nederlandse Geschiedenis
Individual evidence
| predecessor | Office | successor |
|---|---|---|
| Warmolt Tonckens |
Governor of Suriname 1902 - 1905 |
David Hendrik Havelaar |
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Lely, Cornelis |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Dutch hydraulic engineer, governor and politician |
| DATE OF BIRTH | September 23, 1854 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Amsterdam |
| DATE OF DEATH | January 22, 1929 |
| Place of death | 's-Gravenhage |