Lincolnshire & Dutch connections

From the 12th to the 17th century the Hanseatic League dominated trade along the northern coasts of Europe. The League was a powerful trading alliance of merchants from Britain, the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Scandinavia, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and Russia. Boston was an important part of the Hanse network with its river access to Lincoln and on to much of England. Boston’s annual fair was attended by merchants from all over Europe – in those days travelling by water was considerably easier and faster than by land. Wool was the main export, with Boston exporting some 3 million fleeces a year in the 14th century and the port was second only to London as the busiest in the country. As well as wool and cloth, the Hanseatic merchants also traded in wine, beeswax, amber, fried fish and furs.

Cornelis Vermuyden (1595-1677) introduced Dutch land reclamation methods to England. The Dutch drainage engineer led teams of migrants from the Low Countries to drain land in Lincolnshire, the Fens and Essex. The Dutch River in Lincolnshire’s Isle of Axholme, which provided a direct route from the River Don to the River Ouse, bears testimony to Vermuyden’s work.

A corner of England in Lincolnshire, Nottinghamshire and South Yorkshire is where the villages can be found where the Pilgrims’ congregation originated. They were seeking religious freedom and separation from the Church of England, leading them to be called Separatists. In the early 1600’s Gainsborough was a hotbed of religious dissent, attracting the local Separatists led by influential figures like John Robinson and William Brewster. They worshipped in secret at Gainsborough Old Hall, a medieval manor house in the centre of the town. In 1607 they tried to escape to Holland where they could live in religious freedom, they were betrayed and imprisoned in Boston’s Guildhall. They did eventually make it to Leiden in Holland but in 1620 it was decided to make entirely new lives in the New World. Two ships were to make the dangerous voyage, the Speedwell had to be abandoned but the Mayflower sailed on alone.

Named after the miraculous food described in the Bible, in 1945 Operation Manna air-dropped food to relieve a famine in Nazi-occupied Netherlands. Crews from across Lincolnshire were heavily involved in Operation Manna. On 29 April 1945 242 Lancaster’s flew to six different drop zones in the Netherlands and between then and the 7 May 7000 tonnes of food were air-dropped by the British RAF, Royal Australian Air Force, Royal Canadian Air Force, Royal New Zealand Air Force and the Polish Air Force.

After much testing of different packaging, hessian sacks were used to contain the tinned food, dried food and chocolate. To prevent the bags bursting on hitting the ground, they established that drops at a very slow speed from just 400’ (120m) were needed – not easy to achieve. The Battle of Britain Memorial Flight (BBMF) is based at RAF Coningsby and apart from Spitfires and a Hurricane, they have one of only two Lancasters still flying. The Flight can often be seen in Lincolnshire skies returning from a flying display.