Hundred years of history and the future of the Foundation 'Willie Commelin Scholten Phytopathological Laboratory'

Abstract

The past More than a century ago, on December 18th, 1894, the Foundation 'Willie Commelin Scholten Phytopathological Laboratory', in short 'WCS-Foundation' (WCS) , was established in Amsterdam. It was one of the first institutes in the world dedicated to scientific research and higher education in plant pathology. The finances were by courtesy of Mr C.W.R. Scholten and Mrs H.H. Scholten née Commelin, in commemoration of their late son Willie, who had shown himself highly interested in plant pathology when studying botany under the supervision of Prof. Dr Hugo de Vries, one of the founders of the WCS. The families Scholten and Commelin both were wellknown in the Amsterdam community for many centuries. Johannes Commelin, a botanist who lived from 1629 to 1692, was Director of the Amsterdam Botanical Gardens. In 1920, the WCS-laboratory moved to the town of Baarn where it could use the field facilities of the Botanical Gardens of the UtrechtUniversity. In the course of time, the responsibilities for education and research in plant pathology in Baarn were assigned to the University of Utrecht, the University of Amsterdam and the Free University at Amsterdam (Kerling, 1966; 1969). As part of the general cut-backs in higher education, the Free University withdrew in 1987 and the boards of the Universities of Amsterdam and Utrecht decided in 1988 to transfer their Department of plant pathology from Baarn. As a result, the Department was split and moved to the Faculties of Biology at the University campuses at Amsterdam and Utrecht, respectively. In June 1991, the facilities of the Willie Commelin Scholten Phytopathological Laboratory at Baarn were closed. TheWCS-Foundation carrying the same name, however, set a new course to continue her objectives of promoting research and education in plant pathology, as will be discussed later. For more than 100 years, the WCS-Foundation greatly influenced the development of plant pathology and mycology in the Netherlands. On the initiative of the first director, Prof. Dr J. Ritzema Bos, the Plant Protection Service was founded in 1899, and under his directorship located in the Willie Commelin Scholten Phytopathological Laboratory in Amsterdam. His research was application-oriented and finally resulted in his nomination as Director of the newly founded 'Institute of Phytopathology' at Wageningen. Ritzema Bos took his 'Plant Protection Service', the Netherlands Society of Plant Pathology and his 'Tijdschrift over Plantenziekten' with him to Wageningen. This journal later became The Netherlands Journal of Plant Pathology and since 1994 is being continued as the European Journal of Plant Pathology, published in co-operation with the European Foundation for Plant Pathology. Ritzema Bos was succeeded by Johanna Westerdijk as the new director of the WCS-Laboratory in 1906.