Cornelius Vermuyden

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Sir Cornelius Vermuyden (born Tholen, Netherlands, 1590; died London, October 1677 ^[1]) was a Dutch engineer who introduced Dutch reclamation methods to Britain, and made the first important attempts to drain The Fens of East Anglia.

Contents 1 Life 2 Trivia 3 References 4 External links

[edit] Life

Cornelius was the son of Giles Vermuyden and Sarah (nee Werkendet) and was born in 1590 on the Isle of Tholen in Zealand, Holland.^[2] After training in the Netherlands, Vermuyden's first known activities in England were in the Thames, repairing a sea wall at Dagenham and the reclamation of Canvey Island, Essex, between 1621 and 1623, financed by the Dutch haberdasher Joas Croppenburg^[3] to whom he was related by marriage.

This or perhaps work at Windsor brought him to the notice of Charles I, who commissioned him in 1626 to drain Hatfield Chase in the Isle of Axholme, Lincolnshire for which he received one third of the land. To finance the draining he sold shares in this land to French and Walloon protestant refugees who performed most of the work^[4]. A commission was established to compensate those who had the right of pasturage and one third of the land was used for this. The king kept the remaining third to himself.

The operation was seen by locals, particularly those who were not compensated, the fowlers and fishermen, as an attack on their livelihood, and the fact that Dutch workers were used led to hostility, with frequent attacks on the workers. In 1630 they took out lawsuits, and discontent continued until the end of the century^[5].

Vermuyden was knighted in 1629 and became a British citizen in 1633.

The work in Hatfield Chase was only partially successful as the straightening of the river Don and outlet into the Aire caused flooding in Fishlake, Sykehouse and Snaith. As a result of a lawsuit in 1633, he dug the Dutch River which provided a direct route from the Don to the Ouse at Goole, depleting most of the land that he had acquired in the Chase, though the same year he bought 4,000 acres (16 km²) of land in Sedgemoor in Somerset and Malvern Chase in Worcestershire and entered into a partnership in the lead mines in Wirksworth which he drained by means of a sough.

In 1634 Vermuyden commenced on the work for which he is most remembered, the draining of the "Great Fen" in Cambridgeshire and Norfolk. This area of marshland was drained by a labyrinth of rivers which had been inadequately maintained since before the dissolution of the monasteries in 1537 which had most of the responsibility for keeping the channels clear. Vermuyden's plan was bold, including the construction of the major channel, the Old Bedford River, named the Bedford Level after Francis, Earl of Bedford who was the chief Adventurer. This channel, 70 feet (21 m) wide and 21 miles (34 km) long from Earith to Denver was completed in only 2 years. Eight other channels were either created or improved. The operation was judged as substantially complete in 1637, but attracted criticism partly because of its limited aim to provide "summer lands", leaving. the winter floods to still occupy the land.

The adventurers had been offered 95,000 acres (380 km²) as the reward for their work, but this was thrown into confusion by the king who had the decision reversed and himself declared as the chief undertaker taking 52,000 acres (210 km²) and leaving the other parties with only 40,000 acres (160 km²). This was firmly opposed by many including Oliver Cromwell who had been representing the opponents of the drainage scheme, and nothing more was done for a number of years. In 1637, Vermuyden wrote a "Discourse Touching the Draining of the Great Fennes" for the king, though it was not published until 1642, which laid down the principles of the drains and the "washes" - areas of land allowed to flood in periods of bad weather to absorb the extra water which could not find its way to the sea.

During the Civil War, parliamentary forces deliberately flooded the region once again to prevent Royalist advances. By this time there is some evidence that Vermuyden had changed sides and he (or one of his sons, Bartholomew) acted as a colonel of horse in the parliamentary army, alongside Oliver Cromwell in the Eastern Association army.^[6] In 1649 Vermuyden was again appointed as director by the adventurers to improve the drainage of the Bedford Level. The work was completed by 1652 by some of the Walloons who had moved from Lincolnshire to establish a new colony at Thorney and Scottish prisoners-of-war captured at the Battle of Dunbar, and resulted in the digging of the New Bedford River (with a large area of wash between it and the Bedford River) and the Forty Foot Drain. It also established Denver Sluice to stop tides and flood water from depositing silt into the Ouse to the east of Ely. However it did not include his projected "cutoff channel" which was designed to take flood water from the southern rivers, the Wissey, Little Ouse and Lark, away from Denver and this proved an ongoing cause of flooding not finally cured till 1950.

Despite the initial success of the reclamation, the drying of the land caused the peat to shrink greatly, lowering the land below the height of the drainage channels and rivers, and the reclaimed farmland became susceptible to flooding once again. By the end of the 17th century, much of the reclaimed land was sporadically underwater, and would remain so until the advent of steam-powered pumps in the early 19th century.

Vermuyden's relationship with the other adventurers was never easy and by 1655 they had parted company altogether. Several other initiatives came to nothing including a proposed treaty between England and the States-General of the Netherlands made to Cromwell, and efforts to drain his areas of Sedgmoor and Malvern Chase. He had 13 children and his son Cornelius became a founding member of the Royal Society in 1663.

[edit] Trivia

A school in Goole^[7] and a comprehensive school on Canvey Island are named after him, also a pub (Vermuyden Hotel) in Goole.

His family motto "Niet Zonder Arbyt" (translation: "Not Without Work") lives on as the official motto of South Cambridgeshire District Council ^[8]

Vermuyden and his work are mentioned in a negative context in the Lincolnshire legend of the Tiddy Mun.

[edit] References

• Sir Cornelius Vermuyden (J. Korthals-Altes, 1925; Williams and Norgate, London)
• Vermuyden and the Fens (L.E. Harris, 1953; Clever-Hume Press, London)
• The Draining of the Fens (H.C. Darby, Cambridge University Press, 1956)

[edit] External links

• In search of the great Dutchman Cornelius Vermuyden, who reclaimed the Fens, including walking tour