Leidsch Dagblad
- THE KATWIJK DISASTER.
- CANTONAL COURT AT LEIDEN.
- CAUGHT BY A DRIVE BELT.
The Leidsch Dagblad of 28 October 1926 printed a further list of donations for the families of the men lost with the Katwijk fishing vessel KW 152. The gifts in the excerpt ranged from f 1.50 from a private donor to f 7 from the Noordwijk branch of the building workers' union. Its court column reported that 21 cases were listed for the criminal session of the Leiden cantonal court, and that the first defendant was fined f 5, or five days' detention, for a labour offence after the chairman of the Labour Council testified. A short news item reported that a worker at the new cement works at Vijlen-Vaals was caught by a drive belt, badly mutilated, given the last rites and taken to hospital by car.
Translation
THE KATWIJK DISASTER.
We have further received, for the benefit of the surviving relatives of the victims of the KW 152, from: S. J. M. f 2.–; Miss A. M. K. f 1.50; W. A. K. f 2.50; General Dutch Building Workers' Union, Noordwijk branch, f 7.–; the ladies C.
CANTONAL COURT AT LEIDEN.
Yesterday 21 cases were on the roll for the criminal session of the Cantonal Court, all intended for public hearing. The Public Prosecutor's office was represented by Mr. M. B. Vos. First, in the matter of a labour offence, J. J. was sentenced to a fine of f 5, or alternatively 5 days' detention, after Mr. Tj. Goslinga, chairman of the Labour Council, had been heard as a witness and had confirmed the offence.
CAUGHT BY A DRIVE BELT.
At the new cement factory at Vijlen-Vaals the labourer S. from Vaals was caught by a drive belt. The unfortunate man was terribly mutilated and sustained serious injuries to his head and arms. One of his arms was almost torn from his body. The unfortunate man was given the Holy Sacraments of the Dying, after which he was taken by car to the hospital
Context
The storm of 10 October 1926 and the loss of KW 152
The Leidsch Dagblad notice lists small gifts 'for the surviving relatives of the victims of the KW 152', a loss the paper headlines as the Katwijk disaster. A 2026 Visserijnieuws report on the Vlaardingen commemoration of fishermen lost at sea, which marked the sinking of the steam logger VL 46 'Copernicus' a hundred years earlier, summarises a lecture by maritime historian Frits Loomeijer. It places KW 152 'Agatha Maria' among the sailing loggers that went down in the same storm of 10 October 1926, together with VL 213 'Theodoor' and KW 148 'Arie'; 38 fishermen died on these three vessels. Loomeijer told his audience that the night of the disaster made a deep impression but led to no discussion at all of safety in fishing, and that the newspapers of the time reported on the four lost loggers and 52 victims for about a week. The Leiden notice appeared eighteen days after the storm, and its wording ('we have further received') shows that collections for the families were still under way after that first week of reporting. The donors include private individuals identified only by initials and the Noordwijk branch of the General Dutch Building Workers' Union. In this notice the paper prints only the list of gifts and gives neither the number of dead nor the circumstances of the sinking.
From beach boats to loggers on the Katwijk coast
The KW 152 belonged to a fishing fleet that had changed only recently. Fishermen of Katwijk and the neighbouring coastal villages had worked from bomschuiten, boats that at high water could land on the beach to unload their catch. In 1912 Katwijk aan Zee still counted 50 bomschuiten, against 70 at Scheveningen and only 3 at Noordwijk. The arrival of the logger as a fishing vessel made the bomschuit superfluous, and after the First World War no bomschuiten remained in operation. The 2026 commemoration report describes the 'Agatha Maria' as a sailing logger, so the vessel whose crew the Leiden notice mourns was one of the newer type of craft that had taken over from the beach boats within the previous decade or so. Noordwijk, home of the union branch that gave f 7, had kept only three of the old beach boats by 1912.
The Leiden cantonal court and the labour offence
The Kantongerecht te Leiden was in 1926 a court in its own right. The Dutch judiciary's own account notes that the cantonal court used to be a separate court alongside the district courts, the courts of appeal and the Supreme Court, and that in 2002 the cantonal courts were abolished and replaced by a cantonal sector within each district court. In today's system minor offences (overtredingen) are tried at first instance by the cantonal judge, while crimes go to the criminal division of the district court. The session the paper describes fits that pattern of minor cases: 21 cases on a single day's roll, a public prosecutor, Mr M. B. Vos, and a first sentence of a f 5 fine with five days' detention as the alternative. The paper calls J. J.'s case an 'arbeidsovertreding' without naming the statute broken. Dutch enforcement of labour rules went back to legislation that followed a parliamentary inquiry into factories and workshops: a law of 1890 limited the labour of children and women and set up the Arbeidsinspectie to monitor compliance. In the Leiden case the witness who confirmed the offence was Tj. Goslinga, whom the paper identifies as chairman of the Raad van Arbeid.
Safety law for power-driven machinery
The drive-belt accident at the new cement works at Vijlen-Vaals happened in the kind of workplace that Dutch safety law had covered for about three decades. The Veiligheidswet of 1895, which came into force on 1 January 1897, was aimed at protecting everyone present in a factory or workshop containing a power-driven machine or a furnace. It empowered the Arbeidsinspectie to issue regulations for the protection of workers, and a 1915 revision extended it to factories and workshops with five or more staff. The law also opened the way to a growing number of safety rules laid down in decrees, orders and by-laws for particular industries and trades. It followed the parliamentary inquiry into factories and workshops, in which hearings of workers from the Regout tile factory in Maastricht, in the same province of Limburg as Vaals, revealed abuses such as child labour, long hours and poor working conditions. The Leidsch Dagblad report records the man's injuries, the last sacraments and his transport to hospital; it does not say whether the belt was guarded or whether inspectors investigated, and the text breaks off mid-sentence.
Original
DE RAMP TE KATWIJK.
Wij ontvingen nog ten bate van de nagelaten betrekkingen van de slachtoffers der KW 152 van: S. J. M. f 2. -; mej. A. M. K. f 1. 50; W. A. K. f 2. 50. Alg. Ned. Bouwarbeidersbond afd. Noordwijk f 7. -; dames C.
KANTONGERECHT TE LEIDEN.
Er stonden gisteren voor de strafzitting van het Kantongerecht 21 zaken op de rol, alle bestemd voor openbare behandeling. Het O. M. werd waargenomen door mr. M. B. Vos. Terzake van een arbeidsovertreding werd allereerst J. J. veroordeeld tot f 5 boete subs. 5 dagen hechtenis, nadat als getuige was gehoord de heer Tj. Goslinga, voorzitter van den Raad van Arbeid, die de overtreding bevestigde.
DOOR 'N DRIJFRIEM GEGREPEN.
Op de nieuwe cementfabriek te VijienVaals werd de arbeider S. uit Vaals door een drijfriem gegrepen. De ongelukkige werd vreeselijk verminkt en bekwam daarbij ernstige verwondingen aan hoofd en armen. Een der armen werd bijna van het lichaam gerukt. De ongelukkige werd van de H. H. Sacramenten der Stervenden voorzien waarna hij per auto naar het ziekenhuis werd
Source: Source: Erfgoed Leiden en Omstreken (leiden.courant.nu)