Jan van der Heyden

Who was Jan van der Heyden?

Jan van der Heyden was a Dutch Baroque-era painter, draughtsman, printmaker, a mennonite and inventor who significantly contributed to contemporary firefighting. He improved the fire hose in 1672, with his brother Nicolaes, who was a hydraulic engineer. He modified the manual fire engines, reorganised the volunteer fire brigade and wrote and illustrated the first firefighting manual. A comprehensive street lighting scheme for Amsterdam, which lasted from 1669 until 1840, designed and implemented by Van der Heyden, was adopted as a model by many other towns and abroad.