The Barometer Museum in the Netherlands
In May 1987 the Barometer Museum opened its doors. Mrs Neelie Smit, Minister of Transport was invited as a representative of the Royal Dutch Meteorological Institute to open the Barometer Museum. She poured a symbolic last bucket of water in the cistern, together with Bert and Ethne Bolle's daughter Puck. Nearly 200 guests witnessed the glorious ascending of the 55 litres of water.
The opening was broadcast on Dutch national television in prime time on the News and in a tourist program. The museum, most especially the water barometer, would appear tens of times on national television in the next twelve years of its existence.
Since the Barometer Museum was only 10 Km from the Dutch national radio and television studios, it was a wanted spot for the makers of weather programs. All well-known weathermen of the Dutch TV were regular guests in the Barometer Museum. Bert was happy with all that publicity, as it would bring more visitors in. He never said no to the media and didn't take much persuading if he was asked to participate in a lighthearted promotion, even if many hours of hard work would only yield a few minutes of TV. When the museum closed down, Bert and Ethne had over 90 square metres of newspaper and magazine articles in their archive!
There were hundreds of barometers, thermometers, hygrometers and weather houses to be seen. Most of the barometers were mercury instruments, mainly English, Dutch and French, dating from the 18th and 19th century. A modest entrance fee was asked, and there was a museum shop. Main attraction of course was the water barometer. Children used to trip the stairs up and down to follow the rising and falling water column. Some guests came especially to see the 18th century building. They had seen the old country house so often when they made an outing in that scenic part of the Netherlands, and now they had a chance to have a look inside.
Every single item in the museum had a description, and there were guides in several languages. There were many ‘extras’, e.g. an Apple Macintosh computer, connected to the Royal Dutch Meteorological Institute, showing the rain radar in the Netherlands, which was a unique item in the late eighties. The museum had purchased an extremely accurate digital barometer made by Vaisala in Finland. The barometer had two displays: one in the museum, the other one in the calibration room of the workshop where antique barometers were restored and new ones were made. The Bolle family employed over ten craftsmen to do all the specialist jobs.
Bert and Ethne regularly organized an exhibition on a theme, e.g. on Paulus Wast, a famous Dutch barometer maker. The most expensive mercury barometer ever sold in the world was made by Wast and was the centrepiece of the exhibition. A couple of years later, a weather house exhibition was held. The museum shop had 50 different models for sale, so there was a chance for every visitor to strike lucky. Bert had written a small book on weather houses. Over 2,000 people attended that exhibition.
In 1997 the Ministry for the Environment came with a new law to ban all mercury out of newly manufactured barometers. From 1999 onwards, it would be forbidden to make or even to sell new mercury barometers. That was a serious threat for Bert and his craftsmen who used almost 10% of the all the industrial mercury in the Netherlands. If the law would be adopted, the workshop and the museum were condemned to close. There was no compensation for the Bolle family and their glassblowers. Bert of course appealed to the law and fought like mad. He searched the publicity and approached most of the members of parliament, but the new law seemed to be inevitable. For Bert and Ethne, who already had serious intentions to migrate to another country, the bizarre plans of the Ministry for the Environment were the straw that broke the camel’s back. They went to a migration agent to enquire about living in Australia, and set the first steps to eventually lodge an application for a permanent visa.
In April 1998, when the chances to prevent the anti mercury law had become minimal, Bert and Ethne had a very important guest: Her Majesty Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands. She had an elaborate look around in the museum, and finally had a cup of coffee. The queen intended to buy a mercury barometer, but Bert told her about the anti mercury law that was coming up soon. Queen Beatrix was shocked, especially because she was about to buy a mercury barometer, being unaware that she would be asked as the queen to put her signature under a law that would make people staying away from buying mercury barometers! She made Bert and Ethne clear in diplomatic words that she thought that law was a bit over the top, but she couldn’t promise anything of course. Anyhow, she obviously must have pulled the wires at a very high level, since only one month later the anti mercury law was suddenly suspended, in spite of the rather negative outlooks. So eventually Bert had won, but for him and Ethne it all came too late. They had already made up their minds, and had decided to leave the Netherlands indefinitely. They put their country house on the market, and sold it within a week.
The Barometer Museum closed down in October that year. In the 12 years of its existence more than 150,000 guests had visited it, which is quite a lot for a small private museum that always wanted to work without grants. The last pages in the guest book were bubbling over with emotional comments from the visitors about the loss of that small museum they had loved so much, that house with such a lot of history and a royal touch, with all those beautiful floral arrangements made by Ethne.
