Diederik Durven (13 September 1676 – 26 February 1740) was a Dutch colonial administrator and

Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies The governor-general of the Dutch East Indies ( nl, gouverneur-generaal van Nederlands Indië) represented Dutch rule in the Dutch East Indies between 1610 and Dutch recognition of the independence of Indonesia in 1949. Occupied by Japanese ...

from 1729 to 1732. Durven studied Law at Leiden University where he graduated on 19 July 1702. He became an advocate in Delft in 1704. In 1705, he was nominated as a member of the Council of Justice at Batavia in the

Indies The East Indies (or simply the Indies), is a term used in historical narratives of the Age of Discovery. The Indies refers to various lands in the East or the Eastern hemisphere, particularly the islands and mainlands found in and around t ...

. He left for Batavia on the "''Grimmestein''" on 4 January 1706, arriving later that year. After his appointment in 1720 to the

Council of the Indies The Council of the Indies ( es, Consejo de las Indias), officially the Royal and Supreme Council of the Indies ( es, Real y Supremo Consejo de las Indias, link=no, ), was the most important administrative organ of the Spanish Empire for the Am ...

, he was sent, in 1722 and 1723, to supervise the gold- and silver-mines in Parang province. Subsequently, he became (in 1723) chairman of the ''College van Heemraden'' (i.e. drainage board, comparable to a

polder A polder () is a low-lying tract of land that forms an artificial hydrological entity, enclosed by embankments known as dikes. The three types of polder are: # Land reclaimed from a body of water, such as a lake or the seabed # Flood plain ...

board in the

Dutch Republic The United Provinces of the Netherlands, also known as the (Seven) United Provinces, officially as the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands ( Dutch: ''Republiek der Zeven Verenigde Nederlanden''), and commonly referred to in historiography ...

), which was responsible for the management of land outside the city, including supervision of boundaries. He later become President of the Council of Justice - the supreme court of Dutch Asia. In 1729, Mattheus de Haan died. ''Diederik Durven'' succeeded him as provisional Governor-General. This did not last long, as the Directors of the East India Company were very impatient of the speed of change there. Following alleged financial misbehaviour, though more probably as a scapegoat, he was dismissed on 9 October 1731. He was succeeded by

Dirck van Cloon Dirck van Cloon (also Dirk and Theodoor van Cloon; 1684 – 10 March 1735) was Eurasian Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies. He died of malaria at the age of 50. He was born in Batavia sometime in 1684. For his education and training he ...

. Diederik Durven died in the Netherlands on 26 February 1740.

Bibliography

* Paulus, J., Graaff, S. d., Stibbe, D. G., Spat, C., Stroomberg, J., & Sandbergen, F. J. W. H. (1917). ''Encyclopaedie van Nederlandsch-Indië''. 's-Gravenhage: M. Nijhoff * Putten, L.P. van, 2002 ''Ambitie en onvermogen : gouverneurs-generaal van Nederlands-Indië 1610-1796''.

External links

Vocsite.nl
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Durven, Diederik 1676 births 1740 deaths Governors-General of the Dutch East Indies 18th-century Dutch colonial governors Leiden University alumni People from Delft