Pieter “Piet” van Wijngaarden was born in Sliedrecht on 24 September 1922. He was the son of Marinus van Wijngaarden, an engineer, and Antje Visser. Pieter became an assistant dredgemaster and worked in tin dredging for the NV Billiton Maatschappij.
Before travelling to Australia, Pieter and his wife, Martina Cornelia Kolders, lived for a time in the Netherlands East Indies. Pieter worked on the company’s tin-dredging operations on Billiton, now the Indonesian island of Belitung. Martina’s parents were also involved in dredging activities there and lived on the island.
These operations required workers experienced in operating and maintaining dredges. Pieter’s career therefore formed part of the international network of Dutch dredging expertise that connected Sliedrecht with projects in Asia and Australia.
Pieter arrived in Sydney aboard a KLM aircraft on 9 March 1952. There are also indications that he may have occupied seat A5 on the KLM flight that departed from Schiphol for Melbourne on 22 June 1950. This possible earlier journey has not yet been conclusively confirmed.
Martina was born in Sliedrecht on 15 February 1927. She travelled to Australia separately and arrived at Fremantle aboard the Neptunia on 24 April 1953.
Unlike many members of the 1950 dredging group who remained in Australia, Pieter and Martina returned to the Netherlands after the Australian work was completed. Their son, Tom Martin, was subsequently born in Sliedrecht.
Pieter died in Sliedrecht on 8 December 1983, aged 61. Martina also died there, on 4 October 2009. Their story illustrates the highly mobile working lives of Sliedrecht dredging families, whose specialist skills took them from the Netherlands to Indonesia and Australia before they returned home.
This account is based on family-history and migration research undertaken by Fred Stuij. Photograph: Netherlands East Indies passport archive. Gravestone photograph: Online Begraafplaatsen.
For the wider history of the organised migration project with which Pieter may have been associated, see From Sliedrecht to Williamstown: Dutch dredging workers in post-war Australia.
More related company histories, archival sources and personal stories are available through the Dutch Dredging in Australia Research Portal.
