Abstract
This chapter traces the career steps and decisions of Dutch irrigation engineer De Gruyter between 1920 and 1961 to discuss how the Dutch irrigation engineering network managed to emerge and continue by defining what its members considered ‘good practice’. Irrigation education in Delft permitted entrance to working practice. Only those working procedures that had proven themselves in actual irrigation practice became accepted solutions, both in colonial times and after 1945, when colonial irrigation knowledge was made into international expertise. This redefinition of colonial engineering allowed engineer De Gruyter and many of his colleagues to become active in the international field of irrigation and development.
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Notes
- 1.
Ertsen, M.W.: Locales of happiness. Colonial irrigation in the Netherlands East Indies and its remains, 1830–1980, Delft: VSSD Press, 2010. Ertsen, M.W. and Ravesteijn, W.: ‘Living water. The development of irrigation technology and waterpower’, in Ravesteijn, W. and Kop J. (eds.): For profit and prosperity. The contribution made by Dutch engineers to Public Works in Indonesia 1800–2000, Zaltbommel: Aprilis; Leiden: KITLV, 2008, pp. 239–271.
- 2.
Van Doorn, J.A.A.: De laatste eeuw van Indië; ontwikkeling en ondergang van een koloniaal project, Amsterdam: Bakker, 1994. Compare with Armytage, W.H.G.: A social history of engineering, London: Faber and Faber, 1976.
- 3.
Rapport omtrent het irrigatiewezen op Java en Madoera, Batavia: Landsdrukkerij, 1879.
- 4.
Nadault de Buffon, B.: Cours d’agriculture et d’hydraulique agricole comprenant les principes generaux de l’economie rurale et les divers travaux etc., Paris: Victor Dalmont, 1858.
- 5.
Ertsen, M.W.: ‘Indigenous or international. The evolution and significance of East Indian civil engineering’, in Ravesteijn and Kop: For profit and prosperity, pp. 381–401; This was late compared with England. In 1806, the big rival and example colonial power England had already established the East Indian College to organize the education of its future civil servants in the British Indies, Van Leur, J.W.L. and Ammerlaan, R.P.M.: De Indische instelling te Delft; meer dan een opleiding tot bestuursambtenaar, Delft: Volkenkundig Museum Nusantera, 1990; In 1794, the Engineering College at Madras had already started to train surveyors; in 1859 this college was transformed into a civil engineering school, Ambirajan, S.: ‘Science and Technology Education in South India’, in MacLeod, R. and Kumar, D. (eds): Technology and the Raj. Western technology and Technical Transfers to India 1700–1947, New Delhi: Sage, 1995, pp. 113–133). In 1847 an engineering college had been started at Roorkee (India); later colleges included Calcutta (1856), Bombay (1888), Sibpur (1880) and Poona (1854), Derbyshire, I.: ‘The building of India’s railways’, in MacLeod and Kumar: Technology and the Raj, pp. 177–215.
- 6.
Van Leur and Ammerlaan, Indische instelling. This date is relatively late in comparison with similar institutes established in Germany, including Karlsruhe (1825), München (1827), Dresden (1828), Stuttgart (1829), Hannover (1831) and Darmstadt (1836), Groen, M.: Het wetenschappelijk onderwijs in Nederland van 1815 tot 1980. Een onderwijskundig overzicht. II. Wis- en Natuurkunde, Letteren, Technische Wetenschappen, Landbouwwetenschappen, Eindhoven, 1998).
- 7.
Groen, Onderwijskundig overzicht. With the establishment of the Academy, a separation between military and civil technical education was realized in the Netherlands (Van Leur and Ammerlaan, Indische instelling. Van Doorn, Laatste eeuw).
- 8.
Van Leur and Ammerlaan, Indische instelling.
- 9.
Schippers, H.: Van tusschenlieden tot ingenieurs. De geschiedenis van het Hoger Technisch Onderwijs in Nederland, Hilversum: Verloren, 1989.
- 10.
De Jong, J.: De Waaier van het fortuin. De Nederlanders in Azië en de Indonesische Archipel 1595–1950, Den Haag: SDU, 1998; Van Leur and Ammerlaan, Indische instelling.
- 11.
Higher technical education was at an equal level with university education; engineering had become an academic profession in 1905 (Van Doorn, Laatste eeuw).
- 12.
Van Doorn, Laatste eeuw.
- 13.
Van Doorn, Laatste eeuw. Some of them returned to Delft to become professor.
- 14.
Van Sandick, R.A.: ‘Ter herinnering aan P.Th.L. Grinwis Plaat c.i.’, De Ingenieur, Vol. 26, No. 4 (2011), p. 202.
- 15.
For examples of non-admiration, see Snethlage, R.A.I.: ‘De opleiding onzer Indische Ingenieurs’, De Ingenieur, Vol. 5, No. 46 (1890), p. 433; ‘Openbare werken in Britsch-Indië’, De Ingenieur, Vol. 7, No. 3 (1892), p. 25. Compare with Fasseur, C.: De Indologen; ambtenaren voor de Oost, 1825–1950, Amsterdam: Bakker, 1993.
- 16.
Hoogewerff, S., Weys, C.W. and Van Sandick: Het leerplan der op te richten Nederlandsch-Indische Technische Hoogeschool, Den Haag: Belinfante, 1918, p. 21.
- 17.
De Waterstaatsingenieur, 1925.
- 18.
Van Oort, M.A.: ‘Reorganisatie van den Waterstaatsdienst’, De Waterstaatsingenieur, Vol. 7, No. 1 (1919), pp. 12–13.
- 19.
See Bosma, U., Giuisti-Cordero, J. and Knight, R. (eds): Sugarlandia revisited. Sugar and colonialism in Asia and the Americas, 1800 to 1940, New York: Berghahn Books, 2007.
- 20.
Although the termination of the arrangements of the Cultivation System differed per crop type and lasted in some cases up to 1915.
- 21.
Fasseur, C.: Kultuurstelsel en koloniale baten. De Nederlandse exploitative van Java 1840–1860, Leiden: Universitaire Pers Leiden, 1985.
- 22.
See Elson, R. E.: Javanese peasants and the colonial sugar industry: impact and change in an East Java residency, 1830–1940, Singapore: Oxford University Press, 1984. The cropping cycle of sugar cane was three years: first year planting, second and third year maturing and several times harvesting.
- 23.
Onderzoek naar de mindere welvaart der Inlandschen bevolking op Java en Madoera, deel 7: Irrigatie, ‘s Gravenhage: Staatsdrukkerij, 1910, p. 87.
- 24.
Onderzoek irrigatie.
- 25.
Onderzoek naar de mindere welvaart der Inlandschen bevolking op Java en Madoera. Besluiten en voorstellen, ‘s Gravenhage: Staatsdrukkerij, 1914, 32.
- 26.
Weijs, C.W.: ‘Grondslagen eener regeling van het gebruik van bevloeiingswater’. Handelingen van het tweede Congres van het Algemeen Syndicaat van Suikerfabrikanten op Java, Soerabaja, 1898, pp. 164–212.
- 27.
Ertsen, Locales of happiness.
- 28.
Weijs, Grondslagen; See Ertsen, Locales of happiness, for an extended discussion on water management principles in British India and the Netherlands East Indies.
- 29.
Onderzoek irrigatie, p. 93. In discussions on these experiments, other irrigation systems are regularly discussed too (such as the Kening and Madioen systems). Available detailed information, however, on these other systems is at best fragmented.
- 30.
Weijs, C.W.: ‘Ir. A.G. Lamminga’, De Ingenieur, Vol. 36, No. 20 (1921), pp. 372–379; Ravesteijn, Zegenrijke heeren. Lamminga’s works have been regarded as examples for irrigation design. Lamminga himself gave the credits to the ‘push for erecting a separate service for irrigation in 1885 with the reorganization of the Service for Public Works’. Lamminga, A.G.: Beschouwingen over den tegenwoordigen stand van het irrigatiewezen in Nederlandsch-Indië,’s-Gravenhage: Gebrs. J. & H. van Langenhuysen, 1910, p. 5.
- 31.
Onderzoek irrigatie. See on this so-called ethical debate and its later versions Moon, S.: Technology and ethical idealism. A history of development in the Netherlands East Indies, Leiden: CNWS Publications, 2007; Mrázek, R.: Engineers of happy land. Technology and nationalism in a colony, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2002.
- 32.
The history of irrigation in the Krawang area started in the late nineteenth century with plans to develop smaller-scale irrigation works (Bakhoven, H.G.A: ‘De bevloeiing van de vlakte van Noord-Krawang uit de Tjitaroem’, De Ingenieur in Nederlands Indië 3 (7 (1936), pp. VI.107–135.
- 33.
All losses in the canals before the measuring point were not taken into account. The losses, however, could be considerable and constrained water availability for peasant crops.
- 34.
Begemann, S.H.A.: ‘Toepassing van Venturimeters voor bevloeiïngsleidingen met gebruik van differentiaal peilschalen’, De Waterstaatsingenieur, Vol. 12, No. 11 (1924), pp. 325–330. Van Maanen, Th.D.: Irrigatie in Nederlandsch-Indië. Een handleiding bij het ontwerpen van irrigatiewerken ten dienste van studeerenden en practici, Batavia: Boekhandel Visser en Co, 1931 (first print 1924).
- 35.
Begemann, Toepassing.
- 36.
Ertsen, Locales of happiness.
- 37.
De Gruyter , P.: ‘Beschouwingen over aftapsluizen en meetinrichtingen voor bevloeiingswerken’, De Waterstaatsingenieur, Vol. 13, No. 3 (1925), p. 70.
- 38.
De Gruyter , Beschouwingen, p. 70. The original note is Crump, E.S.: A note. Dated 15th of June 1922, by Mr. E.S. Crump, executive engineer, on the moduling of irrigation channels, Typescript, 1922.
- 39.
De Gruyter : Beschouwingen; De Gruyter, P.: ‘Een nieuwe aftap- tevens meetsluis en de resultaten van een proef met een dergelijk kunstwerk’, De Waterstaatsingenieur, Vol. 14, No. 12 (1926), pp. 391–408; Vol. 15, No. 1 (1927), p. 1–15; Vol. 15, No. 2 (1927), pp. 25–34. Bos, M.G. (ed.): Discharge measurement structures, Wageningen: International Institute for Land Reclamation and Improvement, 1990. The APM block was ‘adjustable’ in the sense that it could be changed, but only on a seasonal basis, as adjustable meant ‘use force to remove and then construct again’.
- 40.
Buckley, R.B.: Irrigation pocket book or, facts, figures and formulae, for irrigation engineers: being a series of notes on miscellaneous subjects connected with irrigation, London, Spon, 1911; See: Ali, I: The Punjab under imperialism 1885–1947, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988; Bolding, A., Mollinga, P.P. and Van Straaten, K.: ‘Modules for modernisation: colonial irrigation in India and the technological dimension of agrarian change’, Journal of Development Studies, Vol. 31, No. 6 (1995), pp. 805–844; Stone, I.: Canal Irrigation in British India: Perspectives on technological change in a peasant society (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984.
- 41.
De Gruyter, Beschouwingen, p. 70.
- 42.
De Gruyter , Een nieuwe sluis, p. 392.
- 43.
De Gruyter , Een nieuwe sluis, p. 392.
- 44.
Groothoff, A.: ‘Eenige mededeelingen over de waterkrachtindustrie in Scandinavië en over het waterkrachtvraagstuk in Nederlandsch-Indië’, De Ingenieur, Vol. 33, No. 2 (1918), pp. 18–33.
- 45.
Groothoff, Eenige mededeelingen, p. 32.
- 46.
Which obviously relates to the (rather violent) change in government in Indonesia in the 1960s.
- 47.
See Ertsen, M.W.: Improvising planned development on the Gezira plain, Sudan, 1900–1980, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016; Hodge, J.M: Triumph of the expert. Agrarian doctrines of development and the legacies of British colonialism, Athens: Ohio University Press, 2007; Hodge, J.M., Hödl, G. and Kopf, M. (eds): Developing Africa. Concepts and practices in twentieth-century colonialism, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2014; Kohlrausch, M. and Trischler, H.: Building Europe on expertise. Innovators, organizers, networks, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014; Mehos, D. and Moon, S.: ‘The uses of portability: circulating experts in the technopolitics of Cold War and decolonization, in Hecht, G. (ed.): Entangled Geographies: Empire and Technopolitics in the Global Cold War, Cambridge: MIT Press, 2011, pp. 43–74.
- 48.
Tropical rural engineering (‘tropische cultuurtechniek’, the MSc programme I did myself between 1986 and 1993) was a mixture of a new programme on rural engineering and old irrigation-based courses. Other elements of the old programme survived as tropical crop science (‘tropische plantenteelt’).
- 49.
Baudet, H.: De lange weg naar de Technische Universiteit Delft. 1. De Delftse ingenieursschool en haar voorgeschiedenis, Den Haag: SDU, 1992.
- 50.
Groen, Onderwijskundig overzicht, 263.
- 51.
Brouwer, A.R.H.: Waterkracht perspectieven, Technische Hogeschool Delft: Inaugurele rede, 1955, p. 18.
- 52.
Eysvoogel, W.F.: Eenige aspecten van de moderne irrigatie-techniek in Indonesië, Voordrachten van het Koninklijk Instituut van Ingenieurs, No. 1 (1950), p. 341; See also Eysvoogel, W.F.: De verbetering van den oostmoessonbevloeiingstoestand op Java, Landbouwhogeschool Wageningen: Inaugurele rede, 1946.
- 53.
As for example discussed in Clawson, M. (ed.): Natural resources and international development, Baltimore: John Hopkins Press, 1964.
- 54.
The partnership between Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxemburg.
- 55.
Berkhout, F.M.C.: De waarde van kennis van irrigatie voor de Nederlandse civiel-ingenieur, Technische Hogeschool Delft: Inaugurele rede, 1954, p. 16.
- 56.
Vivekananthan, M.N.: ‘Rehabilitation of irrigation systems in east Java, Indonesia’, Rabat: International Commission on Irrigation and Drainage, 1987, pp. 147–173; Reconnaissance survey Djratunseluna area, 1968.
- 57.
Gany, A.H.A.: The irrigation based transmigration program in Indonesia. An interdisciplinary study of population settlement and related strategies. PhD thesis University of Manitoba, Canada, 1993.
- 58.
‘Bevloeiing in de Lampongsche Districten’, De Waterstaatsingenieur, Vol. 6, No. 7 (1918), p. 296. Pelzer, K.J.: Pioneer settlement in the Asiatic tropics. Studies in land utilization and agricultural colonization in Southeastern Asia, New York: American Geographical Society, 1945.
- 59.
Irrigation design standards; Irrigation design manual; Supporting volume for irrigation design standards, Jakarta: Ministry of Public Works, KP-01, 1986, p. 3.
- 60.
Ertsen, M.W.: ‘The development of irrigation design schools or how history structures human action’, Irrigation and Drainage, Vol. 56, No. 1 (2007), pp. 1–19; See for US engineers and their international careers Teisch, J.B.: Engineering Nature. Water, development, and the global spread of American environmental expertise, Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2011; See for theoretical underpinning Van de Poel, I.: ‘The transformation of technological regimes’, Research Policy, Vol. 32, No.1 (2003), pp. 49–68.
- 61.
Ertsen, Locales of happiness.
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Ertsen, M.W. (2018). Dutch Irrigation Engineers and Their (Post-) Colonial Irrigation Networks. In: Pretel, D., Camprubí, L. (eds) Technology and Globalisation. Palgrave Studies in Economic History. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-75450-5_11
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