Theodoor van Rijswijck

He did not get much formal education, but his father, a teacher, read the works of Jacob Cats, Joost van den Vondel and other poets to his children.

Jan Theodoor van Rijswijck also became a teacher, but being adventurous, he volunteered for the Belgian independence war against the Netherlands in 1830.

But the military life did not bode him well, and he obtained permission to leave the army and returned to Antwerp, where he found work as a clerk at a bank.

He urged Hendrik Conscience to write in Dutch rather than in French, and he himself wrote political and satirical songs.

In 1864 a statue was erected for him in Antwerp, and a street is named after him, the Jan van Rijswijck laan.