Johannes Cornelis de Jonge

[2] 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 of Zierikzee.

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 (student militia) he took part in the Waterloo campaign with the Dutch army.

In 1816 he was also appointed superintendent of the Koninklijk Kabinet van Munten, Penningen en Gesneden Stenen (Royal Dutch Numismatic Collection).

In this period he wrote his magnum opus on the history of the Dutch navy: Geschiedenis van het Nederlandsche Zeewezen (6 volumes, between 1833 and 1848).