Many in Australia, or indeed South Africa and the United States, that carry the family name “Barnard” are descendants of immigrants from England, where this surname is relatively common. In Australia, however, there are a few Barnards that are instead directly related to a small family in the Netherlands. Their story starts on September 1st, 1860, when Johannes Albertus Barnard was born in The Hague, the Netherlands, as a great-great-grandson of Izaak Barnard and Johanna Vogelesang. Johan became a house and coach painter and on September 30th, 1895, in Leiden, he married Christina Voorsmit. They will have nine children; the first of which, Jacobus Christiaan (born on Wednesday July 10th, 1889), was destined to lead an adventurous life that ended in Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia, 77 years later, on Tuesday December 6th, 1966.
This family Barnard first occurs in the historical records on December 13th, 1744, with the announcement of the marriage between one Izaak Barnard and Johanna van Asperen, set to take place on December 27th, 1744, in Scheveningen, a coastal village near The Hague. They will have two children: one son who dies young and one daughter who will remain without children. Only seven years later, on March 4th, 1751, Johanna passes away. She is buried in Rijswijk the next day.
On July 25th, 1751, Izaak Barnard marries again, with Johanna Vogelesang, in the same church in Scheveningen, although both appear to live in The Hague. At the time, Izaak works in a papermill and has become a member of the voluntary civic guard. They will have eight children of whom all Barnards in the Netherlands, as well as some in Australia are to descent. Johanna passes away on March 11th, 1790, and is buried in The Hague. Izaak dies more than ten years later, on December 1st, 1801, and is buried in Amsterdam. At the time, the Republic of the Netherlands had become a client state of the First French Empire, as the Batavian Commonwealth, a result of the economic collapse caused by the Fourth Anglo-Dutch War (1789–1784).
is in the red box (Mortier, Covens & Zoon, Bibliothèque nationale de France).
All available evidence indicates that Jacobus Christiaan (Koos) Barnard was a restless, even a rebellious young man. He trained as an acrobat and a boxer and had jobs with the circus and in the army. In 1907 he left the Netherlands for the Dutch East Indies, modern-day Indonesia, which at the time was a Dutch colony. There he tried his luck as a prospector for gold and a business investor. During these endeavors, he acquired a working knowledge of several languages and obtained a pet monkey. Eventually he settled as a car mechanic, likely in Singapore, which at the time was a British colony.
During the turmoil of the First World War, during which the Netherlands managed to remain neutral, Koos was deported from Singapore to Perth, together with many others, and from there on to Melbourne. After he managed to secure legal status as a resident alien, he made his way north, working odd jobs, until he reached Maitland. There, in church, he met and fell in love with Nellie Violet Cribbin, who worked as a typist and a bookkeeper for a grocery business based in Newcastle, NSW. Born in 1903, she had arrived with her family from the United Kingdom in 1919. They married on September 10th, 1921, in the Congregational Church in West Maitland. They would be blessed with five children: Johanna Christina (1922), Frank Leonard (1924), Sydney Thomas (1928), Bernice Jacqueline (1935), and John Robert (1940).
Newly married, Nellie and Koos moved to Newcastle, where they would live in several of its suburbs, first in Waratah where Koos was one of the founders of the First Waratah Scout Troop, in May 1928. Later he was a scoutmaster with the First Boolaroo Scout Troop. Partly because of the effects of the Great Depression (1929–1939), life was hard for Nellie and Koos at the beginning of their marriage. As both were gifted musicians, they were able to complement their income by performing at events, weddings and funerals, with Nellie playing piano or violin and Koos the flute, mandolin or trumpet. He also competed as an athlete with the Maitland Harriers.
On August 6th, 1928, Koos and Nellie obtained Australian citizenship. Around the same time, Koos got a job at the Electric Lamp Manufacturers of Australia, a subsidiary of Philips, a Dutch multinational. In addition to being a security and first-aid officer, he assisted Dutch staff visiting the company for training and quality control, because of his command of the Dutch language and engineering skills.
When the Second World War broke out, Koos enlisted in the Citizen Military Forces as a first-aid officer. His first posting was in Katherine, Northern Territories, which was a major military staging area at the beginning of the war and the southern-most point ever bombed by the Japanese Airforce, in the afternoon of March 22nd, 1942. At some point before or after this dramatic event, Koos was transferred to Darwin, where he suffered severe leg and head trauma after falling from a truck. For these injuries, from which he never fully recovered, he was treated in the Concord Military Hospital in Sydney. After being released from hospital, he returned to service, first at the Regimental Aid Post in Narellan, near Sydney, and later in Chermside, near Brisbane. May 18th, 1945, Koos was discharged from the army with the rank of lance-sergeant, after serving 1,113 days.
After the war, Koos returned to his job at the Electric Lamp Manufacturers of Australia, where he worked until his retirement. Despite his physical ailments, he was very active in the local community, including the Newcastle Gilbert and Sullivan Players and the local Progress Association, and continued to play tennis and soccer at a high level. He was furthermore always ready to assist anybody in need of a handyman.
After their retirement, Koos and Nellie moved into a waterfront cottage on Coal Point in Lake Macquarie, just south of Newcastle. They remained engaging with those around them, including their children, until Koos suddenly died of a ruptured aorta, on December 6th, 1966. He was cremated at the Beresfield Crematorium and interred in the memorial wall for veterans in the Newcastle Memorial Park (Plot: R S W 14 E/53; Memorial ID: 193436373). Nellie survived him for more than 25 years and passed away on Sunday March 28th, 1993, in Cooranbong, NSW. She too is interred in the Newcastle Memorial Park (Plot: Rose Garden 16/652; Memorial ID: 193436375).
Similar migrations saw other branches of the Dutch family Barnard permanently settle in the United States and in Sweden. Family reunions in December 2009 and October 2024, both in the Netherlands, have helped consolidate records across all branches.
Can You Help Reconnect?
Self-appointed family historian Hans Barnard is seeking to re-establish contact with descendants of Jacobus Christiaan (Koos) Barnard and Nellie Violet Cribbin.
More information is readily available through <https://www.barnard.nl/stamboom/tables.html> and the associated pages.
Email for contact: <nomads@ucla.edu> (Hans Barnard).
