. Johannes Cornelis de Jonge was a DutchRijksarchivaris, 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 theDutch 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, 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 ofZierikzee. 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 he took part in the with the Dutch army. After his return to Leiden he received his doctorate in law and history on 27 July 1816 with the doctoral thesisDiplomata 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 substituutRijksarchivaris in March 1814. In 1816 he was also appointed superintendent of the Koninklijk Kabinet van Munten, Penningen en Gesneden Stenen. In both offices he promoted the accessibility of the collections of archival sources and coins by publishing catalogs. He wrote a large number of historical publications and published facsimile publications of historical documents, in which he used his direct access to the archives. In 1831, after the death of his mentor Van Wijn, he himself was appointed Rijksarchivaris. In this period he wrote his magnum opus on the history of the Dutch navy: Geschiedenis van het Nederlandsche Zeewezen. In 1833 he obtained the original copy of the Union of Utrecht treaty for the National Archives from the Koninklijke Bibliotheek, and a large collection of original medieval charters that had previously been held in the Charter room of the County, later Province, of Holland. De Jonge was also politically active. He was appointed a member of the Municipal Council of The Hague in 1825. In that capacity he became editor of the Dagblad voor Zuid-Holland en 's-Gravenhage in 1827. In 1844 he was elected wethouder of The Hague, which he remained till his death. He was also a member of the Provinciale Staten of the province of South Holland between 1840 and 1851.
Publications
The following is a selection of his published works:
Verhalen over den oorsprong der Hoeksche en Kabeljauwsche twisten,
Levensbeschrijving van Johan en Cornelis Evertsen, Luitenant-Admiralen van Zeeland
Verhalen over den oorsprong, den voortgang en de hoedanigheid van den invloed des derden Staats in de Statenvergaderingen gedurende het Hertogelijk en Grafelijk bewind in Braband, Vlaanderen, Holland en Zeeland
De Unie van Brussel des jaars 1577
Verhandelingen en onuitgegeven stukken, betreffende de geschiedenis der Nederlanden
Onderzoek over den oorsprong der Nederlandsche vlag
Hendrik van Wijn als geleerde en staatsman geschetst
