Johannes Cornelis de Jonge

Jhr. Johannes Cornelis de Jonge (9 May 1793 in Zierikzee – 12 June 1853 in The Hague) was a Dutch Rijksarchivaris (Chief Archivist of the Dutch National Archives), historian, and politician. He is best known for his encyclopedic Geschiedenis van het Nederlandsche Zeewezen, a naval history of the Netherlands that was based on the Dutch naval archives, a large part of which were destroyed in a fire in the archives of the Dutch Department of the Navy in 1844. By default therefore this history had to come in the place of the lost primary documents. Personal life De Jonge was born in an old "patrician" family of Zeeland notables (his ancestor Bonifacius de Jonge had been Raadpensionaris of Zeeland from 1615 to 1625), for which reason he and his family received the aristocratic title of Jonkheer, when king William I of the Netherlands reorganized the Dutch aristocracy in 1814. He was the son of Willem Adriaan de Jonge van Campens Nieuwland and Cornelia Petronella Mogge Pous. As a boy he was already interested in history, and he was instrumental in saving a number of medieval Zeeland charters from being auctioned off in 1810 by the French authorities in his native city of Zierikzee. This brought him to the attention of Hendrik van Wijn, the first archivist of the Batavian Republic, who became the first Rijksarchivaris in the new Kingdom of the Netherlands in 1814, and nominated de Jonge as his deputy in that year. Meanwhile, de Jonge was pursuing his studies in jurisprudence and history at Leiden University, and as a member of the studentenweerbaarheid (student militia) he took part in the Waterloo campaign with the Dutch army. After his return to Leiden he received his doctorate in law and history on 27 July 1816 with the doctoral thesis Diplomata quaedam Hollandica et Zelandica partim inedita partim emendata animadversionibus illustrata. He married Henrietta Philippina Jacoba van Kretschmar on 18 September 1816 with whom he had five children. He died after suffering a stroke in his mansion Huize Zuidhoorn near Rijswijk/The Hague in 1853. Career He was appointed substituut (deputy) Rijksarchivaris in March 1814. In 1816 he was also appointed superintendent of the Koninklijk Kabinet van Munten, Penningen en Gesneden Stenen (Royal Dutch Numismatic Collection). In both offices he promoted the accessibility of the collections of archival sources and coins by publishing catalogs.