Anton van den Hengel is likely the only person born in the Netherlands who is also a fourth-generation Port Adelaidian. His father’s family hails from Amsterdam, specifically from the Jordaan district. Before settling in Amsterdam, the van den Hengels originated from a small town near Utrecht. Anton’s grandparents owned a chicken shop in the Jordaan, and his father was one of five children, born towards the end of World War II. The war had a profound impact on the family. Remarkably, Anton’s father was the first in the family, and the only one of his siblings, to attend high school. After high school, he joined the army, where he learned electronics and received dental care, making him the only one of his siblings to retain some of his own teeth.
On the other hand, Anton’s mother was born in Henley Beach, South Australia, but lived in Port Adelaide. Her father, born near Glasgow due to a complex story involving the merchant navy, was originally from Port Adelaide, as was his father and grandfather. After attending teacher’s college in Adelaide, Anton’s mother traveled to Europe, where she met his father. She reportedly spoke quite good Dutch.
Anton was born in Ede in 1970, and the family moved to Australia in 1974. They lived with his maternal grandparents in Glandore, on Anzac Highway, until the house his parents were building in Blackwood was ready. During this period, Anton spent considerable time with his Australian grandmother, who didn’t speak any Dutch and didn’t see the advantage of him doing so either. Shortly after moving into the new house in Blackwood, his parents divorced, leading to the unfortunate situation where the only two people Anton knew who spoke Dutch no longer communicated with each other. Consequently, his Dutch language skills faded. Despite people suggesting that his Dutch might still be locked away in his mind, Anton has found it challenging to regain proficiency, especially since many Dutch speakers also speak excellent English.
Anton attended school in various locations, including Kadina in country South Australia, the Seychelles, Columbus, Ohio, and eventually back to Blackwood. He was the first in his Dutch family to attend university and has since become a professor in artificial intelligence. His academic journey included sabbaticals in Leuven, where he stayed in the Begijnhof, and in Amsterdam, where he stayed on the Herengracht and the Keizersgracht. He regularly visits his uncle and aunt, who still live in one of the suburbs of Amsterdam, and his cousin in Belgium every couple of years.
Anton is pleased with the family’s move to Australia but acknowledges some disadvantages, such as only being fluent in one language. His heritage is unmistakably indicated by his name and his towering height of 196 cm. Anton also has a reputation for being forthright, a trait that may or may not be inherited.
Anton van den Hengel is the Director of the Centre for Augmented Reasoning (CAR) Australian Institute for Machine Learning (AIML) at the University of Adelaide.
Information for this article was provided by Anton and we used AI to create the information from his information 🙂
