Daily entries from the 17th century London diary
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Wikipedia
Flushing (Dutch: Vlissingen pronunciation ) is a municipality and a city in the southwestern Netherlands on the former island of Walcheren. With its strategic location between the Scheldt river and the North Sea, Flushing has been an important harbour for centuries. It was granted city rights in 1315. In the 17th century Flushing was a main harbour for ships of the Dutch East India Company (VOC). It is also known as the birthplace of Admiral Michiel de Ruyter.
Flushing is mainly noted for the wharves on the Scheldt where most of the ships of the Royal Netherlands Navy (Koninklijke Marine) are built.
[edit] History
The fishermen’s hamlet that came into existence at the estuary of the river Scheldt (Schelde) 620 A.D. has grown over a 1,400-year span into a tourist attraction and into the third-most important port of the Netherlands. Because of Flushing's favourable geographical situation, the Counts of Holland and Zeeland had the first harbours dug. Nowadays 50,000 ships annually from all corners of the world pass through the river Schelde. Tourists are very pleased with this phenomenon, because nowhere else in the world do ships pass this closely to the shore [1].
In the centuries of its growth, Flushing was especially well known as the centre of (herring) fishing, commerce, privateering, and the slave trade. The history of Flushing is characterized by oppression, bombardments and floods. This heritage arose as a consequence of Flushing’s strategic position at the river Schelde.
He who ruled Flushing owned the most important passageway to the docks of Antwerp. For this reason the eyes of several foreign powers fell on Flushing: the British, French, Germans and Spaniards were all within the city's boundaries long before the tourists arrived.
The heyday of the Golden Age, in which ships from Flushing sailed all seas and contributed to the world power of 'De Zeven Provincien' (The Seven Provinces), was followed by a recession in the eighteenth century. The effects of the Napoleonic Wars were especially disastrous. After 1870, a period of revival occurred as a result of the building of new docks, the canal through Walcheren, the railway and the establishment of the shipyard called The Schelde. The Second World War interrupted this growth. Again bombardments, shelling, and inundation heavily damaged the city.
With enormous energy the post-war reconstruction of the city began. In the sixties, development flourished in the seaport and industrial area of Flushing-Oost . Now this area is the economic driving force of central Zeeland, offering many thousands of jobs.
[edit] Population centres
Flushing:
- Binnenstad (quarters: Oude Stad (the "Old City"), 't Eiland (the "Island"), Stadhuisplein, boulevards)
- Middengebied (quarters: Bloemenbuurt, Schildersbuurt, Bonedijke and 't Fort)
- Rosenburg
- Lammerenburg
- Paauwenburg
- Bossenburg
- Papegaaienburg
- Hofwijk
- Vrijburg
- Westerzicht
Villages within Flushing municipality:
- Oost-Souburg (pop. 10,500, quarters: Schoonenburg, Zeewijk)
- West-Souburg (pop. 2,400)
- Ritthem (pop. 618)
[edit] History of the name 'Vlissingen'
The derivation of the name Flushing is moot. Most scholars relate the name to the word fles (bottle) in one way or another.
According to one story, when saint Willibrord landed in Vlissingen with a bottle in the seventh century, he shared its contents with the beggars he found there while trying to convert them. A miracle occurred, familiar to readers of hagiography, when the contents of the bottle did not diminish. When the Bishop realised the beggars did not want to listen to his words, he gave them his bottle. After that, he supposedly called the city Flessinghe.
Another source states that the name had its origins in an old ferry-service house, on which a bottle was attached by way of a sign. The monk Jacob van Dreischor, who visited the city in 967, then apparently called the ferry-house het veer aan de Flesse (the ferry at the Bottle). Because many cities in the region later received the appendix -inge, the name, according to this etymology, evolved to Vles-inge.
According to another source, the name was derived from the Danish word Vles, which means tides.
- In turn, the Dutch colony of Nieuw Vlissingen ('New Flushing') on the Antillian island of Tobago was definitely named for Flushing, as was Flushing, Queens an independent seventeenth-century township that became part of New York City in 1898, and Flushing, Cornwall, a small village in the Carrick district of Cornwall.
[edit] Famous people
Admiral Michiel Adriaanszoon de Ruijter was born here, as well as admirals Joost van Trappen Banckert and Adriaen Banckert.
[edit] Transport
- Railway stations: Flushing, Flushing Souburg.
- Ferry connection to Breskens, since the Western Scheldt Tunnel was opened on March 2003 for pedestrians and cyclists only.
[edit] External links
Wikimedia Commons has media related to:
- Official website (in Dutch, English, and German)
- Map
- A short history of Flushing
- Port of Vlissingen
- Tourist information Flushing
- Railway station Vlissingen:
Annotations
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Flushing is in Zeeland ( http://www.pepysdiary.com/p/480.php ), Holland, and can be seen on this map (as Vlissingen): http://www.fotw.ca/flags/nl(ze.html
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Flushing was the birthplace of admiral Michiel de Ruyter (considered the greatest Dutch admiral ever), of whom we certainly will hear a lot in the next years.
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Flushing had been an english foothold up to 1616. It was gouverned by Robert Sydney, Earl of Leicester.
“Flushing’s strategic importance kept Sidney fully occupied but his view that nothing else mattered as long as Flushing was safe must have irritated those at home. He bombarded ministers with letters bewailing the lack of supplies and money.”
In those days the town was a springboard for “undercover operations”, maybe most famously the one involving Christopher Marlowe.
Looking at the number of mentions of Flushing in the diary in a short period of time maybe this practice is beeing taken up again. -
A 1640 map of Flushing (Vlissingen), the harbor-city of Zeeland
http://grid.let.rug.nl/~welling/maps/vlissing.gif(the map linked by Phil, alas, can no longer be found.)
Historical-political map of the low countries 1556-1648
(Zeeland is in the south, on the sea just north of Flanders. Middleburg is labeled, but its port, Flushing (Vlissingen) to its south, is not.)
http://www.terra.es/personal7/jqvaraderey/155648lc.gif
Flushing, Netherlands Wikipedia article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vlissingen
