Joseph Alberdingk Thijm

He was the eldest son of Joannes Alberdingk, an Amsterdam merchant, and Catharina Thijm. The two family names were merged by Royal Decree on January 20th,1834. Initially Alberdingk Thijm’s father purchased him a business in colonial food merchandise. In 1851 he established the People’s Almanac for Dutch Catholics (1852-1888) and in 1855 he founded the magazine Dietsche Warande, in which he also published using various pseudonyms. His regard for Flanders manifests in both magazines and his contacts with Gezelle, even though he did not love Belgium. In 1863 he acquired the printing house Van Langenhuysen. On December 4th, 1876 Alberdingk Thijm was appointed professor in art history and aesthetics at the state academy for visual arts in Amsterdam. Along with Gezelle he received an honorary doctorate at the Leuven University and in that same year he was appointed ‘foreign honorary member’ of the Royal Flemish Academy of Linguistics and Literature. He also wrote poems and historical novels as an author in his own right.