Our school is named after the famous dutch land engineer who was famous for reclaiming large areas of fenland in the UK - not without some controversy. The following information is reproduced from the British Isles GenWeb web site, with the kind permission of Martin Edwards.

Sir Cornelius Vermuyden, born 1595, Tholen, Netherlands, died circa April 1683 in London, was an engineer who first introduced Dutch land reclamation methods into England and drained the Fens, the low marshy lands of the East of England.

An experienced embankment engineer, Vermuyden was employed in 1626 by King Charles I of England to drain Hatfield Chase in the Isle of Axholme. Jointly financed by Dutch and English capitalists, Francis, Earl of Bedford and 13 Adventurers, the project was a controversial undertaking, not only for the engineering techniques used, but also because it employed Dutch, rather than English, workmen. The fenmen, men who made their living from fish and fowl in the Fens, attacked the Dutch workers. An agreement was finally made in 1630 to complete the project, the engineer had to employ English workers and compensate the fenmen for the loss of hunting and fishing rights; Vermuyden contracted to drain the Great Fen, or Bedford Level in Cambridgeshire, under an arrangement by which he would receive 95,000 acres of the drained lands, during this period the major contribution to the drainage were the Old Bedford River and the Forty Foot Drain: the project, completed in 1637, drew objections from other engineers, who claimed the draining system to be inadequate.

In 1642, during the English Civil War, Parliament ordered the dykes broken and the land flooded in order to stop a royalist army advance. In 1649 Vermuyden was commissioned to reclaim the Bedford Level. After the Civil War the work continued with the actual labour provided by Scottish prisoners of war captured at the Battle of Dunbar in 1650 and Dutchmen captured at a naval battle two years later. Some 40,000 acres were drained by 1652 and the New Bedford River cut.

As a result of this construction, neighboring farmlands were dried out and sank. Some have sunk as much as 20 feet below the waterway to this day. The loss of the peat that settled from the rise and fall of the water caused the "sinking." The surfaces of roads and railways were most often hard to keep even, having a large social and economic impact on the region. Houses and buildings have sunken looks with jammed windows and doorways.

Cornelius Vermuyden was knighted by Charles I in 1629.

History of our School Badge

An old copy of the Cornelius School newsletter from 1983 contained an article about the school badge. Antony Spink (M3) interviewed Mr Mitchell to discover the extent of the Dutch influence upon the design of the school badge. The interview is copied here in full. Many thanks to Mr Davies for this!


A: Who designed the badge?

Mr. M: The whole school was asked to submit designs and my original tutor group 1K’s idea was chosen with one or two modifications.

A: Can you explain the rather unusual star shape positioned within the ‘V’?

Mr. M: Yes. It was agreed that Cornelius Vermuyden, the Dutch engineer largely responsible for the technical knowledge which led to the reclamation of Canvey Island, should be represented in some form. The star was taken from the Vermuyden family crest, but alone was not considered to be sufficient.

A: Has the position of the letters any significance in the overall design?

Mr. M: Yes. The ‘C’ of Cornelius was imposed upon the ‘V’, so making a segment of a circle which was symbolic of the reclamation of land from the sea. Apparently this is an established historic design used elsewhere.

A: I was wondering why the sea was placed between the ‘C’ and the ‘V’ rather than horizontally as one might expect?

Mr. M: Well, if you take the area within the ‘V’ to be Canvey Island then the wavy blue lines representing the sea take on more meaning. There was, at one time a green windmill on the right of the ‘V’ but this was dropped before the badge was produced.

A: Presumably these are the modifications to 1K’s design you were talking of earlier?

Mr. M: Yes, the windmill was included to show that the land required constant drainage. It was further depicted in green to represent the ‘lush’ grass after it was reclaimed. However, the colour clashed and it was removed from the design before the finishing touches were applied.

A: What were these finishing touches?

Mr. M: Mr. Barnes presented the chosen design in an artistic fashion before it was finally produced.

A: Lastly, Mr. Mitchell, how long after the school opened was the badge in use?

Mr. M: Well, obviously the whole process took quite a time and it was Easter before the design was available to the school in badge form.

A: Thank Mr. Mitchell, for answering my questions in such detail.


Additional Information

Download further information from the links below:

• Printable 1983 School Badge Interview (Acrobat - 26Kb)

The school logo as arts images outside the main reception