The Anglo-Dutch heritage, a Konininklijke Bilbiotheek and British Library Alliance

A project within the framework of The Memory of The Netherlands: entry point to the Dutch Cultural Heritage

Introduction
Dutch and British history overlap in many ways. From the mid-sixteenth century onwards, both trading powers regarded the whole world as their sphere of activity. Anglo-Dutch encounters were a common occurrence. The Dutch and British met as fierce competitors in far-away countries. They battled at sea for power in Europe. Artists crossed the North Sea, travellers committed their observations to paper, and scholars exchanged ideas.

This shared Anglo-Dutch past has left many traces. The British Library in London and the Koninklijke Bibliotheek, the National Library of the Netherlands in The Hague, aim to make this common heritage digitally available to the general public.

Both institutions will select representative materials from their collections, concentrating on two main themes:

  1. Anglo-Dutch rivalry overseas: the "Amboina Massacre"
    In 1623, a VOC court of justice on the Indonesian island of Ambon sentenced ten servants of the East India Company and ten Japanese mercenaries in Dutch service to be executed. They were accused of conspiring to overthrow the VOC authorities, which would have given the English control over the profitable spice trade. In England this caused a storm of protest. It was regarded as a judicial murder. The case was beyond the jurisdiction of the VOC court and the confessions were obtained by torture. The "Amboina Massacre" gave rise to a series of pro-British and pro-Dutch pamphlets, that were reissued time and again in the next decades. These pamphlets will all be made digitally available. In addition, materials illustrating the situation in Ambon at the time will be digitised.
  2. Eyewitnesses 1550-1900
    Dutch people travelled around Great Britain and British travellers visited the Netherlands. Their experiences and observations were committed to paper in travel journals, diaries and letters, but also visually, in drawings, water colours etc. From these documents a selection will be made to illustrate Anglo-Dutch relations over time and to show how both nationalities regarded one another.

Availability

The collection will be made available in Memory of the Netherlands and on the website of the British Library.

Planning
The project is expected is completed at the end of 2004.

Websites
www.geheugenvannederland.nl
www.kb.nl
www.bl.uk