Funny, I'm Dutch and have an arts degree so obviously the name Van der Heyden is familiar to me, but I didn't know he was also an engineer who modernized our firefighting systems.
Having said that, "Dutch golden age painter invented better way to pump water out of the Amsterdam canals" sounds more like someone tried to cram as many stereotypes about the Dutch into a sentence than an accurate summary of something that actually happened, haha. I'm surprised it's real history.
Not so much "poor" 'cause that is rare in the Netherlands. Having said that fatbikes are significantly less expensive than other electric bicycles so they are more popular with those who don't want to or can't spend as much money on an electric bike.
[[Come on you guys - you should know better than to post lazy internet ripostes to shallowly provocative titles. This is a fine and interesting historical article.]]
[[[I've edited the title now so it starts fewer fires]]]
The article describes several actual inventions that are still the foundation of modern fire departments. It goes without saying that they didn't come up with the idea of organized firefighting.
> Fire fighters were not paid salaries, however. Each fire company was staffed with 36 residents of the district, serving under the command of two fire masters. Each man appointed had to serve a year or pay a fine of ten guilders.
Not sure about density in urban old Rome or old Amsterdam, but sounds like their "fire brigade" ended up quite larger in Rome unless Amsterdam had a lot of "districts":
> After Egnatius' death, Augustus set up his own fire brigade, which also consisted of 600 slaves, and later, in 7 or 6 BCE the fire brigade was enlarged, now consisting of 3,500 freedmen, the vigiles, who were divided into seven cohorts of 500 men each and made subordinate to a praefectus vigilum. In about 200 CE, their number was doubled to 7,000 men. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcus_Egnatius_Rufus
Seriously Crassus. I know the idea of a rich bastard who starts fires and then makes money putting them out is unbelievable in our modern age but it was a real thing.
Lmao I could not believe this when I read it. Had to do my due diligence in wikipedia afterwards. It's legit! [1]
[1] - Fires were almost a daily occurrence in Rome, and Crassus took advantage of the fact that Rome had no fire department, by creating his own brigade—500 men strong—which rushed to burning buildings at the first cry of alarm. Upon arriving at the scene, however, the firefighters did nothing while Crassus offered to buy the burning building from the distressed property owner, at a miserable price. If the owner agreed to sell the property, his men would put out the fire; if the owner refused, then they would simply let the structure burn to the ground. After buying many properties this way, he rebuilt them, and often leased the properties to their original owners or new tenants.
About 200 years after the Van der Heyden brothers turned firefighting into municipal infrastructure, Amsterdam did the same for horses falling into canals.
Paardenreddingstoestel means "horse rescue apparatus." Johan Christoph Sinck's own technical term was verplaatsbare hijsinrichting, "portable lifting apparatus." The machine became known as het toestel van Sinck ("Sinck's device"), with the nickname het zinktoestel ("the sinking device"), a pun on zinken, "to sink."
1852: Gerrit Sinck (1815–1886), originally a leerlooier (tanner), opens Amsterdam's first paardenslagerij (horse slaughterhouse) at Marnixstraat 194. He buys horses no longer fit for work, tans the hides, and sells horse meat.
That's now the Coffeeshop 1e Hulp ("first aid"), in case you need to pick up some weed after dropping off horse carcases.
In the 1860s his son Johan Christoph Sinck (1837–1923) develops the verplaatsbare hijsinrichting after repeatedly helping recover horses from canals with improvised gieken (derricks/booms). The design is a mobiele driepoot met takel ("mobile tripod with hoist").
The apparatus is first reported in Algemeen Handelsblad on 15 November 1869 after recovering a horse and heavy miller's wagon from a canal.
From the 1870s onward Amsterdam police and the fire brigade summon Sinck via a dedicated telegraph line whenever a horse fell into a canal. The apparatus is used about 50 times a year, roughly once a week.
In 1917 the city purchases the apparatus and municipalizes the service. The fire brigade continues using it into the 1930s.
At the 1883 Amsterdam International Colonial and Export Exhibition Sinck exhibits a model together with recovery statistics: 94 horses, 4 cattle, 2 hearses, 3 omnibuses, 73 carriages, 66 freight wagons, 2 steam boilers, plus barrels of margarine, syrup, tobacco, and Liernur sewage machinery.
In 1908 the city considers buying a second toestel van Sinck but decides one is sufficient because it had never been needed simultaneously at two locations.
On 16 July 1929 the famous photograph is published in the evening edition of Algemeen Handelsblad. A horse belonging to Vogelpoel en Noorwegen bolts into the canal at Westermarkt, swims beneath the bridge at the Herengracht/Leliegracht, and is lifted out with Sinck's device, six years after Johan Christoph Sinck's death.
Google Maps (The horse "...zwom tot hij onder de brug van de Leliegracht in de Herengracht vaste grond onder de voeten voelde.": "...swam until it reached firm footing under the Leliegracht bridge at the Herengracht."):
That's conveniently right by the current Cow Museum CowParadise at Leliegracht 4, in case you want to do some museum touring and cow shopping while visiting this famous horse lifting landmark.
History of the Sinck family, the horse rescue apparatus, contemporary newspaper reports, municipal adoption, and surviving examples:
Today's a nice day for a bike or even horse ride, so I'm inspired to swing by these landmarks, and pick up some medical weed at 1e Hulp and some fresh cows at the CowParadise museum! Anyone want to meet up at the canal for a smoke and a swim?
Yeah, and keep in mind most of those houses where merchant houses where trade happened at the time so there probably was a lot of loading and unloading going on everywhere.
Although, given the current-day Dutch attitude to bike helmets I wouldn't be surprised if our ancestors were just being stubborn too, haha.
Most likely the latter. Thousands of bikes, a hundred people, and more than thirty cars fall in to Amsterdam canals each year. "What to do if your car falls in the water" is part of driver's ed.
When learning kayaking you have to practice a water escape, I wish there was something similar for driver's ed in the Netherlands. Thinking about it is terrifying.
Funny, I'm Dutch and have an arts degree so obviously the name Van der Heyden is familiar to me, but I didn't know he was also an engineer who modernized our firefighting systems.
Having said that, "Dutch golden age painter invented better way to pump water out of the Amsterdam canals" sounds more like someone tried to cram as many stereotypes about the Dutch into a sentence than an accurate summary of something that actually happened, haha. I'm surprised it's real history.
You sure he wasn't also a wearing his clogs while biking to his tulip farm before going home to make stroopwafels while eating Gouda?
And to be more specific, he was biking home on his fatbike.
Nah, not a fatbike, he was a native Dutchman.
As are many of the modern fatbike riders ;)
Indeed, fatbike riders come in all colours. Though I have noticed that it is mainly transportation for the poor.
Not so much "poor" 'cause that is rare in the Netherlands. Having said that fatbikes are significantly less expensive than other electric bicycles so they are more popular with those who don't want to or can't spend as much money on an electric bike.
> those who don't want to (…) spend as much money
That would generally speaking be the average Dutch person, no?
[stub for offtopicness]
[[Come on you guys - you should know better than to post lazy internet ripostes to shallowly provocative titles. This is a fine and interesting historical article.]]
[[[I've edited the title now so it starts fewer fires]]]
There were many private establishments going back to Ancient Rome.
Fully paid, professional municipal departments came in 1853 Cincinnati.
So I guess it depends on how you define it. US gets a lot of credit for the idea of a “fire department”
James Braidwood established one in Edinburgh in 1824.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Braidwood
Invented? Ancient Rome would like a word: the Vigiles Urbani date back to 6 AD.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firefighting_in_ancient_Rome
And private firefighters were active even earlier, with Crassus particularly notorious:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcus_Licinius_Crassus
The article describes several actual inventions that are still the foundation of modern fire departments. It goes without saying that they didn't come up with the idea of organized firefighting.
Yeah the title is clickbaity, a more accurate title would be that they improved and/or scaled it.
From the article:
> Fire fighters were not paid salaries, however. Each fire company was staffed with 36 residents of the district, serving under the command of two fire masters. Each man appointed had to serve a year or pay a fine of ten guilders.
Not sure about density in urban old Rome or old Amsterdam, but sounds like their "fire brigade" ended up quite larger in Rome unless Amsterdam had a lot of "districts":
> After Egnatius' death, Augustus set up his own fire brigade, which also consisted of 600 slaves, and later, in 7 or 6 BCE the fire brigade was enlarged, now consisting of 3,500 freedmen, the vigiles, who were divided into seven cohorts of 500 men each and made subordinate to a praefectus vigilum. In about 200 CE, their number was doubled to 7,000 men. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcus_Egnatius_Rufus
Seriously Crassus. I know the idea of a rich bastard who starts fires and then makes money putting them out is unbelievable in our modern age but it was a real thing.
Lmao I could not believe this when I read it. Had to do my due diligence in wikipedia afterwards. It's legit! [1]
[1] - Fires were almost a daily occurrence in Rome, and Crassus took advantage of the fact that Rome had no fire department, by creating his own brigade—500 men strong—which rushed to burning buildings at the first cry of alarm. Upon arriving at the scene, however, the firefighters did nothing while Crassus offered to buy the burning building from the distressed property owner, at a miserable price. If the owner agreed to sell the property, his men would put out the fire; if the owner refused, then they would simply let the structure burn to the ground. After buying many properties this way, he rebuilt them, and often leased the properties to their original owners or new tenants.
Crass!
Didn’t know that; in modern italian vigili urbani is the traffic police.
What have the Romans ever done for us?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qc7HmhrgTuQ
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About 200 years after the Van der Heyden brothers turned firefighting into municipal infrastructure, Amsterdam did the same for horses falling into canals.
Paardenreddingstoestel means "horse rescue apparatus." Johan Christoph Sinck's own technical term was verplaatsbare hijsinrichting, "portable lifting apparatus." The machine became known as het toestel van Sinck ("Sinck's device"), with the nickname het zinktoestel ("the sinking device"), a pun on zinken, "to sink."
1852: Gerrit Sinck (1815–1886), originally a leerlooier (tanner), opens Amsterdam's first paardenslagerij (horse slaughterhouse) at Marnixstraat 194. He buys horses no longer fit for work, tans the hides, and sells horse meat.
https://www.google.com/maps/@52.371571,4.8760238,3a,75y,235....
That's now the Coffeeshop 1e Hulp ("first aid"), in case you need to pick up some weed after dropping off horse carcases.
In the 1860s his son Johan Christoph Sinck (1837–1923) develops the verplaatsbare hijsinrichting after repeatedly helping recover horses from canals with improvised gieken (derricks/booms). The design is a mobiele driepoot met takel ("mobile tripod with hoist").
The apparatus is first reported in Algemeen Handelsblad on 15 November 1869 after recovering a horse and heavy miller's wagon from a canal.
From the 1870s onward Amsterdam police and the fire brigade summon Sinck via a dedicated telegraph line whenever a horse fell into a canal. The apparatus is used about 50 times a year, roughly once a week.
In 1917 the city purchases the apparatus and municipalizes the service. The fire brigade continues using it into the 1930s.
At the 1883 Amsterdam International Colonial and Export Exhibition Sinck exhibits a model together with recovery statistics: 94 horses, 4 cattle, 2 hearses, 3 omnibuses, 73 carriages, 66 freight wagons, 2 steam boilers, plus barrels of margarine, syrup, tobacco, and Liernur sewage machinery.
In 1908 the city considers buying a second toestel van Sinck but decides one is sufficient because it had never been needed simultaneously at two locations.
On 16 July 1929 the famous photograph is published in the evening edition of Algemeen Handelsblad. A horse belonging to Vogelpoel en Noorwegen bolts into the canal at Westermarkt, swims beneath the bridge at the Herengracht/Leliegracht, and is lifted out with Sinck's device, six years after Johan Christoph Sinck's death.
Official Amsterdam City Archives story:
https://www.amsterdam.nl/stadsarchief/stukken/dieren/paard-w...
Official Amsterdam City Archives image:
https://archief.amsterdam/beeldbank/detail/875cdbf3-7446-304...
Google Maps (The horse "...zwom tot hij onder de brug van de Leliegracht in de Herengracht vaste grond onder de voeten voelde.": "...swam until it reached firm footing under the Leliegracht bridge at the Herengracht."):
https://www.google.com/maps/place/Leliegracht+16,+1015+DE+Am...
That's conveniently right by the current Cow Museum CowParadise at Leliegracht 4, in case you want to do some museum touring and cow shopping while visiting this famous horse lifting landmark.
History of the Sinck family, the horse rescue apparatus, contemporary newspaper reports, municipal adoption, and surviving examples:
https://www.hippomobielerfgoed.nl/2020/sinck/
History of Amsterdam canal horse rescues and the famous 1929 photograph:
https://www.hippomobielerfgoed.nl/2018/in-de-amsterdamse-gra...
Today's a nice day for a bike or even horse ride, so I'm inspired to swing by these landmarks, and pick up some medical weed at 1e Hulp and some fresh cows at the CowParadise museum! Anyone want to meet up at the canal for a smoke and a swim?
That device's legacy lives on and is still in active use, though the main customers are now cows:
https://www.dutchnews.nl/2021/05/rotterdam-floating-farm-cri...
Why didn't they just build railings and fences so that horses don't fall into canals?
Canals were used for transport by boats/ships. My guess would be that railings would be a hindrance for loading/unloading.
Yeah, and keep in mind most of those houses where merchant houses where trade happened at the time so there probably was a lot of loading and unloading going on everywhere.
Although, given the current-day Dutch attitude to bike helmets I wouldn't be surprised if our ancestors were just being stubborn too, haha.
Most likely the latter. Thousands of bikes, a hundred people, and more than thirty cars fall in to Amsterdam canals each year. "What to do if your car falls in the water" is part of driver's ed.
I mean the last bit is a pretty important skill regardless of safety features, especially in a country like the Netherlands.
When learning kayaking you have to practice a water escape, I wish there was something similar for driver's ed in the Netherlands. Thinking about it is terrifying.
>Called a ‘snake’ (slang in Dutch)
Disappointingly this isn't the origin of the English word slang. It seems to be of Viking origin.
Yeah, and "boomslang" means "tree snake". It's not some obscure possibly hip hop related subculture jargon.
”Viking” is not a language, it’s not even an ethnic group. The language you’re probably referring to is Old Norse.
Colloquially, it is. See for example BBC’s recent headline “The Viking word hidden in the Declaration of American Independence” (https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20260625-the-ancient-word...)
It is (was) a mechanism for language introduction though, to be fair.
It's a culture.
If I said a word came from the hacker culture, is it relevant that hacker isn't a language and hackers aren't an ethnic group?