Is this to do with the 'Poetics of the Bath in the Iliad', which sees a fight between Ajax and Homer ? At any rate nothing to do with Amsterdam.
Had forgotten about this. It's to do with a 16th century invention by a namesake of an MP from Watford.
That's it - Sir John Harrington who built his own house in Bath, and installed his invention, the Ajax - which so impressed Elizabeth I that she ordered one. Over to you..