Jacob van brands

Jacques van Marken

Jacob Cornelis van Marken , called Jacques (born July 30, 1845 in Dordrecht , † January 8, 1906 in Hof van Delft ) was a Dutch entrepreneur .

Van Marken was considered an exemplary “social entrepreneur” and a pioneer of his time in the “ social question ”. He was the first employer in the Netherlands to set up a works council . Mostly celebrated abroad, especially in Germany, he was also criticized - throughout his life, especially by his compatriots - as a “radical liberal do-gooder” who had “done a lot for his workers” but “did not allow them to do or make decisions themselves ".

He donated the Agnetapark , a garden city-like Delft housing estate, which is considered the most outstanding of its kind and of its time in the Netherlands.

Life

Van Marken in 1904 with his wife and illegitimate children

Van Marken came from a middle-class family; his father, who was also called Jacob Cornelis van Marken, was a Protestant clergyman, while his mother Petronella Alida van Voorthuysen was a housewife. Jacques van Marken was the sixth of eight children. Shortly after his birth the family moved to Amsterdam, where Jacques attended school and then in Delft at the Polytechnic School, the predecessor of the Technical University of Delft , technology and sociology studied. During this time he met his future wife Agneta Matthes , who came from a wealthy family in Amsterdam and whom he married in 1869. Agneta Matthes had already worked intensively on the preparatory work for founding the company during her engagement and played a major role in the success of van Marken throughout her marriage, which remained childless.

After completing his studies in 1867, van Marken started working for the Photogenic Gasfabriek in Amsterdam , but dreamed of starting his own company.

During his studies, he went on a study trip to Austria-Hungary and got to know a new method for making baker's yeast that fascinated him. When he heard complaints from a baker in Delft about the changing quality and availability of the yeast available in the Netherlands, he remembered this method and decided to produce baker's yeast industrially and of consistently high quality. At that time, yeast production in the Netherlands was a secondary activity in the Schiedamer Genever distilleries, which at the end of the fermentation process was irregular and varied, which hindered the bakers in their baked goods production. Van Marken traveled to Vienna, where he found out about the new production method, later known as the “Viennese process”, and discovered in the course of his research that the Saccharomyces cerevisiae strains were best suited for his intended purposes.

Van Marken had had an extramarital relationship with a Maria Eringaard since 1871, which resulted in a total of five children. When the child's mother and two of their children died of tuberculosis in 1889 and van Marken was confronted with the problem of what should happen to his three surviving children, his wife offered him to take in and raise the children. Officially, they were foster children whom the couple had taken with them. Van Marken's paternity, however, was an open secret in Dutch society.

An adoption of the children, which van Marken sought with the consent of his wife, failed because of his father's veto, who refused the legal consent required at the time.

Jacob Cornelis Eringaard, van Marken's oldest illegitimate son, who later ran the Gist- & Spiritusfabriek, continued to pursue the social interests of his father and his wife. He wrote various relevant literature, including Dutch model sites of personal care for employers (Delft 1896). In the Utrecht Nieuwsblad of January 9, 1899, it was stated that a Bureau voor Sociale Adviezen had been founded on his initiative .

The youngest daughter, Erry Anna Eringaard, married the diplomat and editor Daniel Johannes von Balluseck (1895–1976) in 1932 .

From the 1880s, Jacques van Marken suffered from chronic nerve pain, probably a polyneuropathy , the underlying disease of which has not been recognized or has not been passed down. It prompted him again and again to take professional breaks and to regular medical treatment and cures , mostly in France. In 1886 he was unable to work for several months in a health resort in France, from probably 1890 on the advice of a French doctor he took morphine for pain relief and soon fell into addiction . In 1905 van Marken officially resigned from almost all functions.

He died on January 8, 1906 at the age of 60 and was buried in Jaffa Cemetery in Delft.

Companies

In 1869 he founded with the financial support of his father and a loan of the bank Mees & Zoonen (now the Fortis group belonging), the first yeast factory in the Netherlands, the Nederlandsche Gist & Spiritusfabriek NV , now part of the international chemical company Koninklijke DSM is . With the production concept of this company, Jacques van Marken is counted among the Dutch pioneers in the development of industrial food production.

Van Marken, also called "welfare engineer" by contemporaries, developed together with Agneta Matthes for the factory workers of his Nederlandsche Gist- & Spiritusfabriek NV, which was founded in 1869, a bonus wage system according to which all employees, in addition to a basic wage, add two to Could receive 20 percent of their wages. Furthermore, the company paid out up to ten percent of the business profit as a profit share to its employees. In 1878 van Marken set up the first works council in the Netherlands, called “de kern” (core). The "newest Mittheilungen" of the official press of Prussia provided information in its April 1894 edition about this "social policy premium wage system with profit sharing", "which deserves the attention of other circles".

On June 24, 1882, the "Fabrieksbode" (factory messenger) appeared for the first time, the oldest works magazine in the world and a forerunner of the employee magazines that van Marken used as a mouthpiece to communicate his socio-economic ideas. Especially in German business circles, this "contemporary binding" was enthusiastically received, van Marken was granted the "invention patent" and the idea was copied in many ways. The magazine initially appeared weekly, later every fortnight and in recent years monthly. It wasn't until 2001, when it was the oldest company newspaper in the world, that the Fabrieksbode ceased to appear.

In 1873 van Marken founded the Delftsche Coöperatieve Winkelvereeniging and in 1883, with a large financial contribution from his wealthy mother-in-law, the Nederlandsche Oliefabriek NV , whose factory building was located next to the yeast factory. A little later, in 1885, the couple took over Delftse Lijm- & Gelatinefabriek NV . Here, too, Jacques van Marken officially acted as sole managing director. Due to the worsening health problems of Jacques van Markens and the work overload of the couple, François Gerard Waller, a nephew of Markens, was entrusted with the management of the business in 1886. In 1892 another printing company was founded (which is now owned by the Koninklijke drukkerij GJ Thieme ).

At the height of its success, around 1885, when more than 1,250 employees worked for the van Marken Group, the public spoke of the Delftsche Nijverheid (Delft Industry).

Publications

In 1881 van Marken published La question ouvrière à la fabrique Neerlandaise de levure et d'alcool. Essai de solution pratique. (The workers question in the Dutch yeast and alcohol factory. An attempt at a practical solution.) And 1894 L'Organisation sociale dans l'industrie (The social order in industry), which was printed in two editions and also translated into German and English. The extent to which his wife contributed to the content is not known; It is however certain that she was at least responsible for the translations.

Agnetapark

Monument in the Agnetapark

In 1881, again with financial support from Agneta's mother, the couple acquired a 4- hectare property behind the factory in Hof van Delft for 16,000 guilders. At that time Hof van Delft was a separate, rural, rural and only sparsely populated municipality that was far outside the Delft city limits. Between 1882 and 1884, according to the plans of the landscape architect Louis Paul Zocher (a son of Jan David Zocher ), a spacious park, criss-crossed by watercourses and laid out in the style of an English garden , in which the architect Eugen Gugel had 48 terraced houses, semi-detached houses and four-in-handers together with the community houses and the villa of the donors. The facility was named after Agneta Matthes Agnetapark .

What was new about this residential park, in contrast to other contemporary workers' apartments, was that it was a self-contained, multi-storey apartment with its own entrance and a small garden area. This type of housing originated in England, where the first workers' settlements in the form of terraced houses were built in the early 19th century. The architects of the Agnetapark went a significant step further by distributing these apartments, in the style of today's semi-detached houses and four-in-hand, generously and variedly in a park that offered recreation and relaxation, offered plenty of space and had numerous communal facilities. In addition, every apartment had running water, a sanitary room with toilet and sink - almost a sensation at that time.

The founder's villa was located in the middle of the settlement and was called Rust Roest (literally: "The calm rusts", freely translated: "Who rests, rusts").

The cost distribution of the system was unique at the time. The donors founded a corporation for the development of the settlement and handed the park over to their employees in 1870 according to the cooperative principle as joint property to prevent speculation.

To the great astonishment of the donors, the employees were nowhere near as enthusiastic about the housing estate as they had expected. On the one hand, at that time, the facility was far from any urban facilities and very poorly located. Attempts were made to compensate for these disadvantages by improving the community facilities, which took up more and more offers. Three buildings were available: De Gemeenschap (the community), a large house that housed a kindergarten and a primary school and served as a meeting place, had a dining room, a gymnasium and a billiards club ; de Tent (the tent), a music and events pavilion and the building of the Agnetapark shopping cooperative , which housed a grocery store and a bakery, later also a clothing store and other everyday items were sold. Finally, a children's playground, a bowling alley , a shooting range and a boat shed with rowing boat rental were created in the park . The club system was also intensively promoted. Among other things, a volunteer fire brigade , a rifle club , a bowling club , a bicycle club and a music band were created.

However, the employees did not appreciate living close to their employer and thus feeling under his direct control. They didn't like at all to get in touch with the top boss and his families every day, even in their free time, and to see hardly any faces other than work colleagues and superiors. They also continued to complain about the long way to the city and that there were no transport links. Another point of criticism was the level of rent and reserves, which were too high for most workers.

Only after the death of the van Markens did the park gradually develop into a sought-after residential area with houses for rent that are traditionally relatively few in the Netherlands. In 1931 the Villa Rust Roest , which had been empty for a long time, was converted into a household school, and in 1981 the building was demolished. The Agnetapark has been a listed building since 1989 .

Individual evidence

1. ^ P. Werkman, Paul E Werkman, Rolf E van der Woude, R. van der Woude: Geloof in own Zaak. Uitgeverij Verloren, 2006, ISBN 90-6550-910-0 . P. 141
2. ↑ ^{a b c d} Biographical Woordenboek van Nederland: Matthes, Agneta Wilhelmina Johanna (1847–1909)
3. ↑ Delft municipality: Agneta WJ Matthes  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
4. ^ Archive of the municipality of Utrecht: Utrechts Nieuwsblad of January 9, 1899
5. ↑ BWSA: Jacob Cornelis van Marken
6. ↑ Michel: From the factory newspaper to the guide. P. 29
7. ^ Official press of Prussia: Latest communications, April 1894 .
8. ↑ ^{a b} Koninklijke Bibliotheek - National Library of the Netherlands: KB ontvangt complete editie oudste bedrijfsblad ter wereld
9. ↑ Michel: From the factory newspaper to the guide. Pp. 29/30
10. ↑ Hofland: Van Marken en de Delftsche Nijverheid. P. 4
11. ↑ Wijkkrant Hof van Delft, May 2007  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  

literature

Jan van der Mast: Jacques van Marken. De first sociale ondernemer van Nederland. Amsterdam: Nieuw Amsterdam, 2019, ISBN 978-90-468-2095-7

Web links

• Biography (dutch)