John Van Riemsdijk (13 November 1924 – 31 August 2008) was a curator of the

Science Museum, London The Science Museum is a major museum on Exhibition Road in South Kensington, London. It was founded in 1857 and is one of the city's major tourist attractions, attracting 3.3 million visitors annually in 2019. Like other publicly funded ...

. He was instrumental in establishing the

National Railway Museum The National Railway Museum is a museum in York forming part of the Science Museum Group. The museum tells the story of rail transport in Britain and its impact on society. It is the home of the national collection of historically significant r ...

in the years before 1975. He was a noted model engineer and author. He merited a

Guardian newspaper ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

obituary in 2008.

Biography

Van Riemsdijk was born in 1924. His parentage brought a Dutch father and an English mother together. So that as a young man, he travelled widely by train with his father around Europe. He attended

University College School ("Slowly but surely") , established = , closed = , type = Public schoolIndependent day school , religion = , president = , head_label = Headmaster , head = Mark Beard , r_head_label = , r_hea ...

, Hampstead, and

Birkbeck College Birkbeck, University of London (formally Birkbeck College, University of London), is a public university, public research university, located in Bloomsbury, London, England, and a constituent college, member institution of the federal Universit ...

, London, where he read English and French. Soon after graduating he was recruited into the Royal Navy. Combining his knowledge of continental Europe and his practical inventive skills saw him recruited in World War Two into the

Special Operations Executive The Special Operations Executive (SOE) was a secret British World War II organisation. It was officially formed on 22 July 1940 under Minister of Economic Warfare Hugh Dalton, from the amalgamation of three existing secret organisations. Its pu ...

. Prior to joining the Science Museum in 1954, he had already made a name for himself in the model railway world with a geared clockwork mechanism. This was marketed as the Walker Riemsdijk mechanism. The Walker element referring to the London shop of Walkers & Holtzapffel in whose catalogue it was featured. During the design of the

he worked closely with

David Jenkinson David Jenkinson (6 August 1934 – 27 April 2004) was a railway modeller and historian, who had a particular interest in the London, Midland and Scottish Railway (LMS) and was president of the LMS Society. Biography Jenkinson was born in Lee ...

. He became an acknowledged expert in the history and practice of the

Compound locomotive A compound locomotive is a steam locomotive which is powered by a compound engine, a type of steam engine where steam is expanded in two or more stages. The locomotive was only one application of compounding. Two and three stages were used in shi ...

Memberships

He held memberships of the

Newcomen Society Newcomen may refer to: People *John Newcomen (c.1613–1630), English first white settler murdered by another white settler in Plymouth Colony, Massachusetts *Matthew Newcomen (c. 1610–1669), English nonconformist churchman *Thomas Newcomen (1663 ...

Stephenson Locomotive Society The Stephenson Locomotive Society (SLS) was founded in the UK in Autumn 1909 for the study of rail transport and locomotives. More recently, on 1 January 2017, the SLS became a private company limited by guarantee, registered in England and Wales ...

, the Bevil's Club, and the office of a vice-president of th
Gauge One Model Railway Association

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Riemsdijk, John Van 1924 births 2008 deaths British curators

Biography

Memberships

Further reading

References