Johannes van der Kemp

Dr Johannes Theodorus van der Kemp (17 May 1747 in Rotterdam – 15 December 1811 in Cape Town) was a military officer, doctor, and philosopher who became a missionary in South Africa.

Early life

The second son of Cornelius van der Kemp, a minister and Rotterdam's leading reformed clergyman, and Anna Maria van Teylingen, he attended the Latin schools of Rotterdam and Dordrecht. He subsequently enrolled at the University of Leiden in 1763 where he studied medicine, but when his elder brother Didericus was appointed as professor of church history he abandoned his studies. At an early age he attended the University of Leiden, where he progressed rapidly, and where his brother was later a professor of divinity.

Army career

Soon after college van der Kemp joined the Dragoon Guards rank of Captain of Horse and a Lieutenant of the Dragoon Guards. Ignoring his religious principles, he fathered an illegitimate child, Johanna ("Antje"), an affair to which he described as being “the slave of vice and ungodliness”, and afterwards brought up his child himself. In 1778 he fell in love with Christina ("Stijntje") Frank (d. 1791). He lived with her for a year before being reprimanded by the Prince of Orange on this irregular state of affairs. As a result, he both married Stijntje, on 29 May 1779, and quit the army after serving for sixteen years.

Return to medicine

Returning to his medical studies, this time in Edinburgh, he completed his Medical Doctorate within two years. He also prepared for publication a treatise in Latin on cosmology, entitled Parmenides, which was published in 1781.

Missionary work

After making contact with the London Missionary Society, he helped found the Dutch version Nederlandsche Zendinggenootschap. He was ordained in London in November 1798 and began recruiting men for the society. He sailed from London in December 1798 as one of the first three agents sent by the society to Cape, arriving in March 1799.

Whilst there in 1799 he published the first work in book-form in South Africa, which was an 8-page translation, into Dutch, of the London Missionary Society's letter that he brought out to the inhabitants of the Cape. Printed by V.A. Schoonberg most likely on J.C. Ritters press.

Once in South Africa, after working at Gaika's Kraal near King William's Town he journeyed beyond the eastern frontier of the colony to work among the Xhosa under Chief Ngqika. From the Xhosa he received the name Jank' hanna (‘the bald man’).

In print

Sarah Millin, one of the most popular English-language novelists in South Africa during her lifetime wrote The Burning Man about the life of van der Kemp. The life of Johannes van der Kemp during his mission in Bethelsdorp is included in the novel Praying Mantis by André Brink.