From Groningen to Australia
Jan de Vries was born on 28 December 1910 in Groningen, the Netherlands. Before emigrating to Australia, he worked as a shopkeeper and lived at Nieuwe Ebbingestraat 44/1 in Groningen.
He was one of the Groningen Seven, a group of men who developed plans for an organised migration to Tasmania following the Second World War.
The men shared connections through their Reformed Christian background and sought to establish a building enterprise that would provide employment and housing for their families.
The migration project
In March 1950, the group formalised its plans through an agreement setting out the responsibilities of the participants and the proposed business arrangements.
Eerke van der Laan and Egbert Pinkster travelled ahead to Tasmania to investigate employment, land and housing opportunities.
The migrants subsequently established the Australian Building Corporation at Kingston, south of Hobart. Their activities contributed to the development of the settlement that became known as Little Groningen.
De Vries was approximately 39 years old when the migration project was formalised. He and his wife had three young children.
Although his participation in the original group is documented, the available research does not establish his precise responsibilities within the building enterprise or the details of his later working life.
Historical significance
Jan de Vries belonged to the founding generation of Little Groningen, whose members organised their migration around a shared economic and community undertaking.
His story illustrates the diversity of occupational backgrounds among the migrants. Not all were builders or tradespeople before leaving the Netherlands; the original group included people with administrative, commercial and professional experience.
Further information about de Vries and his family would help establish his individual contribution to the settlement and his subsequent life in Australia.
Distinguishing two migrants named Jan de Vries
This Jan de Vries should not be confused with another Dutch migrant of the same name, born in Naarden in 1901, who arrived in Tasmania in 1949 and settled at Penguin.
The earlier migrant wrote a series of 29 letters describing his experiences in northern Tasmania. Those letters have been preserved separately by Kees Wierenga and published by the DACC.
Letters from emigrant Jan de Vries – Tasmania 1949
Sources and acknowledgement
This article is based principally on Kees Wierenga’s research:
- Dutch Migration to Tasmania in 1950 – Motivation, Intention and Assimilation, University of Tasmania, 2005.
- Little Groningen – Tasmania.
The Dutch Australian Cultural Centre acknowledges Kees Wierenga’s contribution to documenting the history of the Groningen Seven.
Related research
This article forms part of the DACC’s Research Portal – Little Groningen: Dutch migration, faith and community in Kingston, Tasmania.