Minckelers met de vlam

Jan Pieter Minckelers was born in Maastricht in 1748. His grandfather was a doctor and his father owned a pharmacy in the 'Herenstraat'. Like so many sons of the well-to-do middle class, he was schooled by the Jesuits, close to his parental home. In 1764, he continued his studies in Leuven, after which he became a deacon.

He was a Dutch physicist and apothecary; studied natural sciences at Leuven University, where he was appointed professor in 1771. By heating crushed coal, he (together with Van Bochaute) found what he called "combustible air" on 1 October 1781. On 21 November 1783, the first balloon filled with this gas rose in the park of the castle at Heverlee near Leuven and came down 25 kilometres further in Zichen. As early as 1785, Minckelers repeatedly illuminated his auditorium with the light gas he found.

He returned to his hometown in 1789, where he established himself as an apothecary. He also showed an interest in meteorology, geology and palaeontology. His description of fossil mosasaur bones was exploited by Cuvier. He later taught physics and chemistry at the Ecole Centrale in Maastricht, which was founded by the French. From 1801 to 1815, Minckelers was a member of the local council of Maastricht. In 1816, he joined the Academy of Science in Brussels. Shortly afterwards, he suffered a stroke. He died on 4 July 1824 at the age of 76.

In 1902, a committee formed to erect a memorial in memory of this great Maastricht artist. The statue on the Markt (Boschstraat) was designed by Bart van Hove from Amsterdam and cast in bronze at the Verbeyst company in Breussel. With his invention, Jan Pieter Minckelers stood at the cradle of the many applications of gas that still benefit us today. An eternal flame symbolically burns from the statue's gas pipe.