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
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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.
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