Hendrik Pierson

Hendrik Pierson
Hendrik Pierson by Jan Pieter Veth (1896)
Born	(1834-07-10)10 July 1834 Amsterdam, Netherlands
Died	7 August 1923(1923-08-07) (aged 89) Groningen, Netherlands
Nationality	Dutch
Occupation	Pastor
Known for	President of the Heldringstraat-asylum

Hendrik Pierson (10 July 1834 – 7 August 1923) was a Dutch Lutheran minister and member of the Réveil religious revival movement. He was president of the Ottho Gerhard Heldringstichting, an asylum for reformed prostitutes, from 1877 to 1914. He was one of the leaders of the campaign to abolish state regulation of prostitution, and in 1898 became president of the International Abolitionist Federation..

Hendrik Pierson was born in Amsterdam on 10 July 1834, the fourth child of Jan Lodewijk Gregory Pierson (1806–1873) and Ida Oyens (1808–1860). He grew up in a genteel middle-class environment. He was influenced by the poetic piety of his mother and the prophetic spirit of Isaac da Costa. He studied theology in Utrecht, and in 1857 became a minister in Heinenoord, in South Holland. On 4 May 1857 he married Hermine Agnes Kolff (1833–1870). They would have six children. During the years that followed he was influenced by modernism, and later said he learned to descend into the depths of his own sinful heart. He considered resigning his office. However, by 1868 he had come to a deep and assured faith.

In 1869 Pierson moved to 's-Hertogenbosch, where he campaigned vigorously for Christian education. He was chairman of the School Council, and formed an advocacy group for Christian education at the national level. His first wife died in 1870. On 1 August 1872 he married Petronella Adriana Oyens (1834–1907). There were no children from this marriage, but his second wife acted as a beloved mother for his children from the first marriage.

Prostitution was no longer listed as a criminal offense in the 1811 penal code of the Netherlands, and was allowed to take place in semi-regulated brothels. By 1851, when 36 towns introduced new brothel regulations, there were estimated to be about 1,000 active prostitutes in Amsterdam and 300–400 in Rotterdam and Utrecht.Ottho Gerhard Heldring (1804–1876) was the first social activist in the Netherlands to advocate providing care to prostitutes rather than punishing or repressing them. He established the first asylum for "fallen" women in Zetten, a village in Gelderland. In 1849 Heldring founded the "Steenbeek" asylum for prostitutes. Heldring was supported by the Amsterdam Réveil circle, which established the Association for the Encouragement of Penitent Fallen Women in 1846. The women and girls at the asylum stayed in an austere environment, were given basic education, read the Bible and sang. The board took responsibility for them after their release, trying to find them jobs as domestic servants with respectable families or in institutions. By 1870, 825 women and girls had passed through the asylum, which had inspired institutions on similar lines across the Netherlands and throughout Europe.