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the Netherlands, incorporating both the old United Provinces and the Austrian Netherlands. A strong-willed man, he spent much of the later part of his life trying to control his disparate kingdom but failed, primarily because of the Protestant north’s attempt – or perceived attempt – to dominate the Catholic south. The southern provinces revolted against his rule and in 1830 the separate Kingdom of Belgium was proclaimed. During the years of the United Kingdom, Amsterdam’s status was dramatically reduced. Previously, the self-governing city, made bold by its wealth, could (and frequently did) act in its own self-interest, at the expense of the nation. From 1815, however, it was integrated within the country, with no more rights than any other city. The seat of government (and the centre for all decision-making) was Den Haag (The Hague), and so it remained after the southern provinces broke away.

History |

The nineteenth century

In the first decades of the nineteenth century, the erosion of Amsterdam’s pre-eminent position among Dutch cities was largely camouflaged by its profitable colonial trade with the East Indies (Indonesia). This trade was however hampered by the character of the Zuider Zee, whose shallows and sandbanks presented all sorts of navigational problems given the increasing size of merchant ships. The Noordhollandskanaal (North Holland Canal), completed in 1824 and running north from Amsterdam to bypass the Zuider Zee, made little difference, and it was Rotterdam, strategically placed on the Rhine inlets between the industries of the Ruhr and Britain, that prospered at Amsterdam’s expense. Even the 1876 opening of the Nordzeekanaal (North Sea Canal), which provided a direct link west from Amsterdam to the North Sea, failed to push Amsterdam’s trade ahead of rival Rotterdam’s, though the city did hold on to much of the country’s shipbuilding industry, remnants of which can still be seen at the ’t Kromhout shipyard (see "Museum Werf ’t Kromhout and De Gooyer windmill"). The city council was also slow to catch on to the possibilities of rail, but finally, in 1889, the opening of Centraal Station put the city back on the main transport routes. Nonetheless, Amsterdam was far from being a backwater; in the second half of the nineteenth century its industries boomed, attracting a new wave of migrants, who were settled outside of the centre in the vast tenements of De Pijp and the Oud Zuid (Old South). These same workers were soon to radicalize the city, supporting a veritable raft of Socialist and Communist politicians. One marker was a reforming Housing Act of 1901 that pushed the city council into a concerted effort to clear the city’s slums. Even better, the new municipal housing was frequently designed to the highest specifications, no more so than under the guidance of the two leading architects of the (broadly Expressionist) Amsterdam School, Michael de Klerk (1884–1923) and Piet Kramer (1881–1961). The duo were responsible for the layout of much of the Nieuw Zuid (New South ) in general and the De Dageraad housing project in particular (see "Haarlem").

History | The nineteenth century |

The Netherlands reconfigures

Nationally, Jan Rudolph Thorbecke (1798–1872), the outstanding political figure of the times, formed three ruling cabinets (in 1849–53, 1862–66 and 1872) and steered the Netherlands through a profound attitudinal change. The political parties of the late eighteenth century had wanted to resurrect the power and prestige of the seventeenth-century Netherlands; Thorbecke and his liberal allies resigned themselves to the country’s reduced status as a small power and eulogized its advantages. For the first time, from about 1850, liberty was seen as a luxury made possible by the country’s very lack of power, and the malaise that had long disturbed public life gave way to a positive appreciation of the very narrowness of its national existence. One of the results of Thorbecke’s liberalism was a gradual extension of the franchise, culminating in the Act of Universal Suffrage in 1917.

History |