From the magazine – In 1977, 100 years after the Royal Netherlands Navy commissioned the cruiser Atjeh, a Tideman commemoration was organised for the first time. The focus was on the figure of naval engineer Bruno Joannes Tideman (1834-1883), the designer of the Atjeh: the first Dutch naval ship for which model tests had been carried out. In 1977, the question was asked: ‘Who was this man of remarkably keen insight?’ A question that is still relevant in 2025.

This article was published under the heading of Markets in SWZ|Maritime’s January 2025 issue and written by Joke Korteweg, maritime historian and project manager of PartnerSHIP – From Tideman to Dutch Naval Design, info@kortewegmaritiem.nl.
At the 1977 commemoration, Tideman’s biographer dr.ir. J.M. Dirkzwager summarised his significance in the title of his lecture: ‘Tideman as pioneer of modern shipbuilding in the Netherlands’. According to Dirkzwager, that pioneering was in three areas. First, Tideman managed to restore confidence in the languishing Dutch shipbuilding industry by encouraging the establishment of a private shipyard for naval construction: De Schelde in Vlissingen, now Damen Naval.
Secondly, he considered (international) cooperation in the field of naval shipbuilding inevitable for a small country like the Netherlands. And finally, he was convinced that this was only possible with engineers who had a thorough theoretical basis. Tideman was therefore the first professor of naval architecture at the Polytechnische Hogeschool, now TU Delft.
When a second Tideman commemoration was organised after five years, in 1982, it focused on cooperation. This was the part that Tideman had been least able to shape during his lifetime. Shortly before his death, he took the initiative to establish a Society for Shipbuilding and Shipping, in which cooperation within the Netherlands should have taken shape. However, this idea was never developed further.
As with the first commemoration, the Dutch Shipbuilding Research Station (Nederlands Scheepsbouwkundig Proefstation, NSP, later MARIN) was the initiator together with the Royal Netherlands Navy. Prof. Ir S. Hengst, professor of shipbuilding at Delft, emphasised in his 1982 contribution that Tideman’s principles were still relevant: ‘If we […] want to preserve shipbuilding as an industry, this means that research and innovation, based on long-term planning, are at the heart of it.’
Although there were plans for five-yearly commemorations, it stayed conspicuously quiet around Tideman after 1982. Who was this man and why is it time for a third Tideman commemoration?
Also read: SWZ|Maritime’s January 2025 issue: Tideman special and optimistic 2025
Tideman
Bruno Tideman was a son of an Amsterdam notary of the same name. After training at the Royal Military Academy in Breda, he was attached to the Rijkswerf in Vlissingen as an aspiring engineer. Over the years, he was promoted to chief engineer. In that position, he supervised the construction of the “ramtorenschip” (turret ship) Prins Hendrik der Nederlanden at Laird’s yard in Birkenhead in the years 1865-1867. In 1873, Tideman reached the highest rank within the Naval Shipbuilding Department: chief engineer adviser. Meanwhile, he had been transferred to the Rijkswerf in Amsterdam.
At a time when the navy was engaged in a huge fleet replacement project, this was a challenging position. The introduction of iron and steel in shipbuilding and weapon production made very different demands on naval vessels. Together with the introduction of the steam engine as a means of propulsion, this required major modifications to the ships.
This did not only apply to the Netherlands. In the British Institution of Naval Architects, for example, research using scale models to determine the speed of ships was discussed. In 1873, naval engineer William Froude managed to convince his opponents of the usefulness of this method.
Since Tideman had then just been commissioned to design a cruiser with the unprecedented speed of 14 knots, he followed Froudes experiments with interest. In a simple towing facility in a sheltered part of Amsterdam’s Marinedok, he pioneered a model of the cruiser Atjeh in 1874. He carried out resistance tests, but also used Froude’s equation to determine engine power. The Minister of the Navy saw the usefulness of this and in 1876 authorised the construction of a covered towing tank at the Rijkswerf in Amsterdam: unique on the European continent.
Equally unique was that Tideman published the results of his scientific research in the Naval Memorial (Memoriaal voor de Marine). Other countries regarded their research data as secret. Thanks in part to this publication, Tideman enjoyed international fame. For example, he was asked to carry out tests for the Russian imperial yacht Livadia.
In the Netherlands, he was appointed doctor honoris causa in mathematics and physics at Leiden University (1875). His efforts to establish a large private shipyard for naval construction in Vlissingen were rewarded with the foundation of the Koninklijke Maatschappij De Schelde.
On 11 February 1883, Tideman died of a stomach ailment, while he was only 48 years old. In the relatively short period he was in charge of Dutch naval shipbuilding, his productivity was enormous. Newspaper reports after his death described him as modest, capable and hard-working, but also unyielding and stern.
Also read: Symposium PartnerSHIP – From Tideman to Dutch Naval Design
A third commemoration
In the century and a half since Tideman, the developments he initiated continued. In fact, he single-handedly formed the modern Golden Triangle of science, industry and naval shipbuilding. In 2025, in times very reminiscent of Tideman’s, that triangle is still highly topical. From MARIN and COMMIT (the Royal Netherlands Navy Materiel and IT Command), the idea was therefore conceived to organise a third Tideman commemoration.
For more than a year, a working group delved into Tideman and the century and a half following him. During the symposium “PartnerSHIP – From Tideman to Dutch Naval Design“, the results of that research will be presented. The lessons that can be drawn from it will inspire an exploration of the future. An accompanying glossy will also be presented at the symposium.
SWZ|Maritime’s January 2025 issue also features a Tideman special. In it, some results of more in-depth technical research for which there was no room in the glossy are published. The articles are a taste of much that Bruno Joannes Tideman has put into action with his ‘remarkably keen insight’.
Picture: Bruno Joannes Tideman, 1834-1883, was the pioneer of modern shipbuilding in the Netherlands (source MARIN).
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