Tlie Butch Agricultural Colonies. 
795 
who had speut some years in the Indies, conceived the idea of 
employing the poor in fertilising and cultivating waste lands, on 
a svstem with which he had become familiar in Java, upon 
a Chinese colony near to his own farm ; and having obtained 
the support of several distinguished persons, Prince Fi-ederick at 
their head, he founded the Benevolent Society in 1818. The 
annual subscription of members was fixed at 2Ji. 60c. (about 
4s. 4(i!.), in order to secure as wide a basis as possible. Within 
twelve months the society had more than 20.000 members, and a 
beginning of its programme was made by the purchase of 
1,200 acres of heath-land, which were formed into a colony, 
called Frederiksoord, after the president of the Society. On 
this colony 52 families were installed in as many houses, with 
about six acres of land attached to each. A second colony 
with 50 houses was opened in January, 1820, the name of 
Frederiksoord being extended to embrace both ; and later in 
the samej'ear a third colony, as large as the other two together, 
was opened, with the title of Willemsoord, after the then Prince 
of Orange (afterwards King William II.) By the end of 1821 
four new colonies were formed, and the name of Wilhelmina's oord, 
after the widow of Prince William Y., was given to two of them. 
Shortly afterwards the Society founded, in addition to the 
free colonies above named, two beggar colonies at Ommerschans 
and Veenhuizen, which it attempted to carry on in conjunction 
with the others. The subsequent historj?- of the Society is too 
complicated to be told here,' but some of its difficulties are in- 
dicated in the following account of its operations by the present 
Director, Dr. Lohnis : — 
The principal aim was to ameliorate the condition of the working-classes 
l)y procuring them permanent work, as far as possible according to their 
individual capabilities. Agriculture was the chief means of giving employ- 
ment. The poor families who were sent to the colonies came out of the 
towns, and were therefore unacquainted with farm work; but it was sup- 
posed that they could learn it in a few years, and that they would be able 
to supply their own wants afterwards. The fonnder of the Benevolent 
Society, enabled by voluntary subscriptions, bought a large tract of waste 
land in the northern part of Holland. Several hundreds of small farm- 
houses were built, and it was supposed that the families who were placed 
on the farms would fertilise and cultivate their 0| acres of land, with the 
aid of an annual grant of money for a period of about live years, and that 
they could subsequently live on the produce of the land. It wiU thus be 
' A very clear and interesting account of tlie causes which led up to the 
Society's financial crisis of 1859 will be found in Mr. H. G. Willink's 
Report of 1889 to the Charity Organisation Society on " The Dutch Home 
Labour Colonies." (Kegan Paul, Trench & Co. Price Is. 6d.) Some 
valuable facts about the colony arc also given in Pasteur Robin's article, Des 
Colonies Lihres cle Travaillenrs en Hollande et en Allemagne. (Bulletin de la 
Society G6n6rale des Prisons, November 1886, p. 938. Paris : Imp. Chaix.) 
