Already in the 18th century Friesland had a triving telescope industry. In 1818 Sieds Johannes Rienks (1770-1845) and Arjan Roelofs (1754-1828) received an order from King William I (1772-1843) for two big 55 cm telescopes. One for Leiden Observatory and one for Utrecht. They were designed to be able to serve as Newon-, Gregory- and Cassegrain-telescopes.
The Leiden telescope was delivered in 1821, the one for Utrecht was ready in 1823 but never delivered. The instrument seems to have been beautiful to look at, but the mirror was very poor and the mounting too unstable. The makers had fully underestimated the problems they faced when grinding mirrors of this size. The committee lead by Prof.C. Ekema was incompetent for its task, and never admitted that this telescope was a failure. The cost of 13.500 € (~300.000 euros in 2012) had been enormous for those days. In 1845 (after the death of William I), the Leiden telescope was sold as scrap, in a not advertised auction. If this instrument had functioned properly it would have put Leyden in the front of astronomical science of those days.