Anthonie Rouwenhorst Mulder

Anthonie Thomas Lubertus Rouwenhorst Mulder (28 April 1848 – 6 March 1901) was a Dutch engineer and foreign advisor specializing in hydraulic engineering during the Meiji period in the Empire of Japan. He was responsible for the design and construction of two port cities in Japan, at Misumi in Kumamoto and Moji-ku.

After graduation he worked in the Netherlands and Egypt before travelling to Japan in 1879, where was employed along with nine other Dutch engineers as a member of the group of western experts and advisors, known in Japanese as O-yatoi Gaikokujin (Kyūjitai: , Shinjitai: , 'hired foreigners'), who were brought to the country by the Japanese Government in order to modernise and improve the country's infrastructure.

Rouwenhorst Mulder designed and oversaw various river and hydraulic engineering projects in Japan, and planned adaptations to the Port of Tokyo involving river separation and deepening works. He spent 11 years in the country, returning to the Netherlands in 1890. In addition to the works he carried out in the Netherlands, Egypt and Japan, he published a number of reports on his work and hydraulic engineering subjects. For his achievements in Japan, he was appointed as an Officer of the Order of the Sacred Treasure in 1888.

Life and career Rouwenhorst Mulder was born in Leiden, the son of tobacco trader A.T.L. Rouwenhorst Mulder and his wife A.C.E. d’Ailly, in 1848. He attended primary school in Leiden and later in Alkmaar, before completing his secondary education in Haarlem, and then studied from 1867 to 1872 at the Polytechnic School in Delft (now TU Delft), graduating as a civil engineer in 1872. Upon graduation, worked for Rijkswaterstaat as a supervisor on the River Waal at Herwijnen. However, after only one year, he was invited by Prince Henry, the son of King William II, to establish a trading post at the northern entrance to the Suez Canal, near Port Said in Egypt.

Japan Rouwenhorst Mulder was then recruited by the government of Japan in late 1879, working alongside nine other Dutch civil engineers (Cornelis Johannes van Doorn, Isaac Lindo, George Arnold Escher, Johannis de Rijke, Dick Arnst, Alphonse Thissen, Johannes Westerwiel, Josinus Kalis and Arie van Mastrigt). Kinugawa River, Fuji River, Yodo River and the Sumida River. He became known in Japan as a specialist in the redesign and improvements of ports and harbours. At the Port of Tokyo, he proposed separating the harbour from the river by means of a dam at the river Samida-gawa, and constructing a tidal basin with an area of 1,400 hectares.

Personal life Rouwenhorst Mulder married Margaretha Anna Jongkindt Connick on 29 April 1891 in Wageningen. He died in 1901 and was buried at Rustoord cemetery in Nijmegen.

Legacy On 8 May 1990, Hitoshi Yoshida, the mayor of Misumi (Hamada, Japan) visited Leiden and unveiled a commemorative stone on the site of the house where Rouwenhorst Mulder was born in 1848.

Selected papers by Rouwenhorst Mulder

Het Nederlandse handelsetablissement te Port Saïd (“The Dutch trading establishment at Port Said”) in Tijdschrift van het Koninklijk Instituut van Ingenieurs (Journal of the Royal Institute of Engineers) (1876–1877), p. 287 (PDF pp. 262–265 and 355–358 (plates)). Korte mededelingen over Japan en meer bepaald over de voornaamste havens die in dat rijk gevonden worden (“Short notes on Japan, and more particularly on the principal harbours found in that country”) in Tijdschrift van het Koninklijk Instituut van Ingenieurs (Journal of the Royal Institute of Engineers) (1887–1888), p. 91 (PDF pp. 238–244 and 336–347 (figures and maps)). Over een drietal zeestraten in den Japanschen archipel (“On a trio of straits in the Japanese archipelago”) in Tijdschrift van het Koninklijk Instituut van Ingenieurs (Journal of the Royal Institute of Engineers) (1892–1893), p. 205 + plate 21–24; PDF pp. 451–470.