Arie Hougee was born in Dordrecht on 15 December 1899 and grew up in a family closely connected with inland shipping and towage. Like his father, he chose a working life on the water and became a tugboat captain based in Lobith, an important shipping centre on the Rhine.
His father, Arie Hougee senior, had been an inland skipper and captain of the tugboat Cor. According to family history, he secretly carried reports from Belgium to the Netherlands on behalf of the Belgian resistance during the First World War. After being betrayed, he was arrested by the German secret police and executed at the Wahn military training ground near Cologne on 19 December 1917. His son Arie was only seventeen at the time.
In 1922, Arie married Johanna Wilhelmina van Diggelen. They had three sons: Arie, Adrianus Jacobus and Hendrik, later known as Hank. Following Johanna’s death in 1945, Arie married Christina Johanna Jacoba Janssen on 18 March 1950. Only a few months later, the family began emigrating to Australia.
Arie travelled to Melbourne aboard the KLM flight of 22 June 1950, occupying seat C5. Christina followed on the flight to Sydney on 22 July, occupying seat I1. Arie’s youngest son Hank, then about twenty years old, travelled on the same flight in seat H1. The passenger information also names Mrs P.T.C. Hougee and Hester Hougee, although their identities and precise relationships to the other members of the family have not yet been established.
Arie and Christina settled in Victoria. A 1965 passenger record gives their address as 12 Highbridge Crescent, Airport West. That year they returned to the Netherlands for a holiday and family visit before resuming their lives in Australia. Christina died in Lobith on 29 June 1984.
Hank established his own life in Victoria. He died in Altona on 21 March 1966 and was buried in Victoria. His memorial also records his wife Shirley, who died in 1999. They had two sons, Simon and Randolph. Simon, who died in 2022, married Nicole and had two children, Mathew and Kirsten. Through Hank and his descendants, a new Australian branch of the Hougee family was established.
The family’s story connects the Dutch rivers and tugboat industry with the organised post-war migration to Australia. Preserved passenger records, photographs of the tugboat Cor and Australian cemetery records help trace a history extending across several generations and two continents.
This account is based on family-history and migration research undertaken by Fred Stuy.
Further information
Photographs and information about the tugboat Cor are available from De Binnenvaart.
Images of Hank Hougee’s grave and cemetery memorial are available through BillionGraves.
Related DACC research
Read the broader story of the organised migration in From Sliedrecht to Williamstown: Dutch dredging workers in post-war Australia.
For related personal stories, migration accounts and company histories, visit the Dutch Dredging in Australia Research Portal.
