Organization of the VOC Chambers
F.S. Gaastra
s
the managers of the chambers, the task of the directors was
to carry out the decisions taken in the sessions of the Heren
XVII. Very early in the seventeenth century the chambers
were given facilities for this work. An Oostindisch
Huis, where the directors met, the accountants, cashiers
and clerks carried out their administrative activities and
where goods were occasionally stored, was set up in all the
cities with chambers. Besides this there were the requisite
warehouses and complexes for the building and equipping of
ships: shipyards, sailmakers', rope-walks, forges; not forgetting
abattoirs, apothecaries and a multitude of other businesses(14).
The internal organization of the various chambers differed
somewhat one from the other. When it was all said and done,
the chambers of Amsterdam and Zeeland were respectively eight
and four times bigger than one small Chamber and this alone
made different demands on the organization.
In Amsterdam the directors
usually met twice a week, on Monday and Thursday. During sessions
of the Heren XVII and when
there were matters which had to be dealt with quickly, extraordinary
meetings were added. Many activities were, however, handled
in committees. Initially the directors followed the practice
which had begun in the voorcompagnieën
of setting up separate committees for each equipage. Directors
were appointed for one season or one year to a committee for
shipbuilding, victualling, ammunition, book-keeping or the
sale of goods. Sometime around the middle of the seventeenth
century four permanent committees, which in the eighteenth
century were called departments, evolved. When directors were
appointed they were given a seat on a committee and mostly
remained active there for the whole of their term of office(15).
The various administrative departments
and sections of the business fell under these committees.
The work was divided up as follows: (See the webpage with
a diagram of the
organization of the Amsterdam Chamber.)
- The commissie
voor de rekenkamer (committee for the audit office)
was in charge of the chief accountant, the clearing office,
the pay office and the clerks' office. The chief accountant
made up the ledger and the journal of the Chamber and he
administered the transfer of shares and the remittance of
the dividends. In the liquidation office were kept the books
in which the transactions with merchants were accounted
for. The pay office was in charge of the extensive personnel
administration and the scheepssoldijboeken
(ship's pay-ledgers) were held there. Lastly, the clerks'
office carried out the secretarial duties.
- The job of the commissie
van ontvang (reception committee), often in conjunction
with the rekenkamer, was
to supervise the cashier. This committee was also given
the responsibility of the buying up the silver and gold
which was to be sent to Asia. The cashier and his assistants
worked in the ontvangkamer
(reception office).
- The heeren
van 't pakhuis (warehouse masters) or, according
to their later more dignified nomenclature, departement
van de commercie, supervised the book-keepers in
the warehouse office. Here a record was kept of which goods
had been purchased, which of these were sent to Asia, which
imported goods had been received from Asia, and what prices
these had fetched at the auctions. Besides, the directors
on this committee had yet another task: they had to audition
ministers of religion who wished to be considered for an
appointment in Asia.
- The task of the commissie
van de equipage (equipage committee) was the
inspection of all matter to do with shipbuilding and the
outfitting of vessels. These directors supervised the shipyards,
they were present when vessels sailed from and dropped anchor
in the Texel roads, and were charged with recruiting sailors
and soldiers.
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Plan
of the deck of a VOC ship indicating amongst others
the storage of victuals ( C and H ),
c. 1760. (click image to enlarge) |
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In the Zeeland Chamber the
directors formed themselves into three committees: the commissie
van de thesaurie (finance committee), commissie
van de koopmanschappen (commerce committee) and the
commissie van de equipage
(equipage committee)(16).
Here it was also the custom to give a director a seat on one
of the committees as soon as he was appointed but, because
equipage and commerce were considered to be much bigger plums
on account of the possibility they offered for granting establishments
to protégés and obtaining emoluments, there was a great deal
of changing around: if a place on the equipage committee fell
vacant, very often somebody from the finance committee took
it and a newly appointed director was placed on the finance
committee. The administrative division in Zeeland was identical
to that in Amsterdam, albeit there were fewer people employed
in the various establishments. Zeeland also had a chief accountant,
a cashier's office, a commercial office and a pay office.
Furthermore, just as was the case in Amsterdam, there were
book-keepers and clerks in the shipyards. The office known
there as the buiten-comptoir
was an office in the warehouse.
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