Jacob Cornelis van Slee


Jacob Cornelis van Slee was a Dutch Reformed clergyman and scholar. He was the author of a study of the Windesheim Congregation, De kloostervereeniging van Windesheim, and between 1875 and 1900 contributed articles on theologians to the Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie.

Life

Slee was born at Hillegom on 23 September 1841, the son of Cornelis van Slee and Anna Barbera Geertruida Romeny. He studied Theology at the Athenaeum Illustre of Amsterdam and at Leiden University. In 1868 he married Elisabeth Kenno and was appointed minister at Herwijnen. Appointments followed at Oostzaan in 1873, at Drumpt in 1877, and at Brielle in 1881. In 1891 he became preacher in Deventer, and in 1892 librarian of the city's Athenaeum Illustre. The library had been founded by the city in 1597, on the basis of a medieval collection, and Slee marked the third centenary by publishing a catalogue of the library's holdings.
Slee retired as a preacher in 1914, and in 1914 he received an honorary doctorate from the University of Groningen. In 1917 he organised a major exhibition on Luther in the library at Deventer, to mark the fourth centenary of the beginning of the Protestant Reformation. His wife died in 1920. He himself retired as librarian in 1928, and died on 21 November 1929. He was buried in Diepenveen, where he had lived since retiring as a preacher in 1913.

Works