Celia Bidloo - supplier of navigational instruments
On this website, historical women from the maritime sector share their stories. This is the story of Celia Bidloo.
About Celia Bidloo
- Lived: 1674–1750
- Employer: she ran her own business and supplied the VOC
- In which maritime sector did she work? Maritime supplier
What kind of work did she do?
Between 1710 and 1750, Bidloo was a supplier of navigational instruments (primarily compasses, as well as sounding lines, night glasses, whetstones, etc.) and flags to the VOC, Amsterdam Chamber.
What else can be said about her maritime life?
She married compass maker Cornelis de Bree the Younger (1672/73–1710) in 1704. The couple had three children, all of whom reached adulthood. Cornelis de Bree and his father, Cornelis the Elder, ran a business together that manufactured flags, compasses, and similar items, supplying the VOC between 1700 and 1710. It is likely that Celia Bidloo was already involved in the firm run by her husband and father-in-law during her husband’s lifetime, because as soon as her husband died, her father-in-law withdrew from the business and Celia took over the deliveries to the VOC. The company’s production was so high that there must have been several people employed there. Moreover, the workforce must have been diverse, as the products supplied were varied: flags and pennants, compasses, hourglasses, night glasses, sliding roses, plumb bobs, lathe copper, copper wire, hekel teeth, paint mills, and grinding stones. In addition to manufacturing, the company also performed repairs. It was a highly successful business: over the course of 40 years, Celia Bidloo earned over 111,000 guilders from deliveries to the VOC (equivalent to 4 million euros today).
*In the exhibition
As far as is known, no ship’s compasses made in the workshop of Celia Bidloo or her husband have survived. But they would have been identical to this one. Ship’s compass by Jacobus van Wijk, 18th century.
On January 31, 1731, the VOC paid Celia Bidloo “for various flags, compasses, and other navigational instruments … and 292 pounds of sounding leads at 2½ Sts” a total of over 961 guilders. On the same page is also a payment to one of the other women who supplied navigational instruments to the VOC, the widow of Simon van Leeuwaerden. Journal of the Chief Accountant of the VOC, May 16, 1728–May 15, 1732. National Archives