20 LEEUWENHOEK AND HIS “LITTLE ANIMALS” 
and was a basket-maker living in the East-End (Oosteinde) of 
Delft—near the now long-vanished TLeeuwenpoort’. He 
appears to have been a craftsman of good Dutch stock, but of 
no personal or social distinction. His own father (Antony 
Philipszn.) was likewise a basket-maker *. 
Leeuwenhoek’s mother was Margaretha, daughter of Jacob 
Sebastiaanszoon Bel van den Berch’, a Delft brewer*. She 
belonged to a good family, and was related to other Dutch 
families of equally good standing’. The brewers then, as now, 
were no inconsiderable folk in Holland; and it thus seems 
clear that any claims which our Antony may have to gentle 
birth must rest upon his mother’. 
Philips van Leeuwenhoek and Margaretha Bel van den 
Berch were married in 1622. Their betrothal (ondertroww) 
was formally announced on January 15, and the marriage took 
place on the 30th of the same month—as Bouricius has now 
‘ Cf. p. 338 sq., infra. The house in which he is believed to have 
lived, and in which L. was born, is shown in Plate II. 
® fide Bouricius. The Leeuwenhoeks, for several generations at least, 
were consistently named Phillip and Antony alternately. (Cf. the family 
tree, p. 18.) This system of alternate nomenclature seems to have been 
common in Dutch families at that period. (L. himself made three unsuccess- 
ful a to rear a son called Phillip—as will be evident in the family 
tree. 
* alias Berg, or Bergh. The name is spelled variously. Margaretha’s 
forename is also given as Margriete (cf. Schierbeek, 1930) and Grietge (cf. 
Plate III). 
* Cf. Boitet (1729), Soutendam (1875), Haaxman (1875), and Bouricius 
(1924, 1925). lL. himself tells us (Send-brief XXII, 16 May 1716) that his 
grandfather and great-grandfather were brewers, and that his grandmother 
was the daughter of a brewer. But his grandfather on the father’s side 
(another Antony) was, as just noted, only a basket-maker. 
* Namely, the families of Hoogenhouk, Bleiswijk, Swalmius, and 
Mathenesse. Cf. Boitet (1729), Halbertsma (1843), and Haaxman (1875). 
® Boitet (1729), only six years after L.’s death, records that he came 
from ‘‘zeer deftige en eerlyke ouders’’; but this was perhaps merely a 
euphemistic way of saying that he was born of respectable parents. It can 
hardly be taken to prove that he belonged to the aristocracy. Although it 
would be unusual to call a basket-maker “ zeer deftig”’ at the present day, 
such hyperbolic expressions were as customary in Holland as they were in 
England at the date when Boitet’s book was published. It must be 
remembered, also, that his book was not issued with the object of belittling 
Delft and her burghers. 
