Hendrik van Rijgersma
Encyclopedia
Naturalist
Naturalist may refer to:* Practitioner of natural history* Conservationist* Advocate of naturalism * Naturalist , autobiography-See also:* The American Naturalist, periodical* Naturalism...
Hendrik Elingsz van Rijgersma (born January 5, 1835 in Lemmer
Lemmer
Lemmer is a town in the municipality of Lemsterland , in the Netherlands. It has a population of around 10,500 and is one of Friesland's most famous water sport towns.Lemmer also is a common Luxembourgish last name....
, Province of Friesland
Friesland
Friesland is a province in the north of the Netherlands and part of the ancient region of Frisia.Until the end of 1996, the province bore Friesland as its official name. In 1997 this Dutch name lost its official status to the Frisian Fryslân...
, the Netherlands
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
, died March 4, 1877 in St. Martin) was a physician
Physician
A physician is a health care provider who practices the profession of medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring human health through the study, diagnosis, and treatment of disease, injury and other physical and mental impairments...
and amateur botanist, malacologist and ichthyologist. He became a physician in 1858, and practiced medicine in the small town of Jisp
Jisp
Jisp can refer to:* Jisp, North Holland, a town in the Dutch province of North Holland* JISP , an abbreviation for Jabber IconSet Packages...
and on the island of Marken
Marken
Marken is a peninsula in the IJsselmeer, the Netherlands, located in the municipality Waterland in the province North Holland. It is an island, which nowadays is connected to the North Holland mainland by a causeway. Also, Marken is a well-known tourist attraction, well-known for its characteristic...
. In 1861 he married Maria Henriette Gräfing; they had seven children.
When slavery was abolished in the Dutch colonies in 1863, he was one of six physicians appointed to provide medical care to the liberated slaves on the island of St. Martin in the Netherlands Antilles
Netherlands Antilles
The Netherlands Antilles , also referred to informally as the Dutch Antilles, was an autonomous Caribbean country within the Kingdom of the Netherlands, consisting of two groups of islands in the Lesser Antilles: Aruba, Bonaire and Curaçao , in Leeward Antilles just off the Venezuelan coast; and Sint...
, where he served as government physician until his untimely death at the age of 42. There he collected many fossils, plants, birds, reptiles, fishes, mollusks, crustaceans and insects.
Hendrik van Rijgersma was an excellent painter and left to posterity many, mostly unpublished, drawings, sketches and water colors of plants, shells and other subjects.
His animal collections were sent by him to the Academy of Natural Sciences
Academy of Natural Sciences
The Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University, formerly Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, is the oldest natural science research institution and museum in the New World...
of Philadelphia, of which he was a corresponding member.
The plants he sent to the Berlin herbarium
Botanical Garden in Berlin
Botanical Garden in Berlin is considered one of the most important gardens in the world, with area of 43 hectares and around 22,000 different plant species.The garden is located in the Dahlem neighborhood of the borough of Steglitz-Zehlendorf...
were destroyed. There apparently are also plants he collected at the National Herbarium of the Netherlands
National Herbarium of the Netherlands
The National Herbarium of the Netherlands was established in 1999 through a decentralized merger of the major university herbaria of Leiden , Utrecht and Wageningen...
at Leyden.
In the Swedish Museum of Natural History
Swedish Museum of Natural History
The Swedish Museum of Natural History , in Stockholm, is one of two major museums of natural history in Sweden, the other one being located in Gothenburg....
, there are 129 plants collected by van Rijgersma, of which 74 have illustrations.