On the night of the 28 April 1656, the Vergulde Draeck struck a submerged coral reef midway between what are now the coastal towns of Seabird and Ledge Point, Western Australia. On board were 193 crew, eight boxes of silver coins worth 78,600 guilders and trade goods to the value Read more…
The Vergulde Draeck sailed from the Netherlands bound for Batavia. The ship foundered in 1656 at Ledge Point, near the mouth of Moore River, leaving 68 survivors stranded. In 1658, two ships were sent to attempt a rescue. Aboard one of the ships, the Waeckende Boey, was officer-navigator Abraham Leeman van Santwits. This Read more…
Early Career and Rise to Prominence Jan (later John, Johnny) Van Oosten was born in The Hague. The family emigrated to Australia in 1954, when Jan was 7 years old. They settled in Victoria Park. His father was Dutch, his mother Polish, they had met each other in Germany where Read more…
By Andrew Bolt, social and political commentator, writer and TV producer. I was born in Adelaide and always felt some contact with Holland. We got parcels every few months from my mother’s parents or sisters of zoute drop, stophoest and editions of Panorama. I read (or just looked at) cartoon Read more…
Sweers Island is an island in the South Wellesley Islands in the Gulf of Carpentaria, Queensland. The island was given its European name by explorer Matthew Flinders on 16 November 1802 after Salomon Sweers, a council member of the East India Company at Batavia who was one of those who Read more…
While the vase looks more Middle Eastern or Asian it might come from a Dutch ship. It forms part of the Captain Thomson collection at the Cooktown Museum. As indicated in the label below the picture it may have found by Frank Jardine, an early landowner, settler and police commissioner Read more…
Early Life and Introduction to Football Trixie Tagg (née van Lieshout) was born on December 13, 1948, in Amsterdam. Growing up in Amsterdam-West, Trixie was introduced to football at a young age, playing street football with friends—mostly boys—in the late 1950s. She fondly remembers listening to football matches on the Read more…
Ted de Lyster, born on June 17, 1947 in The Hague, is an Australian former association football player whose career, though brief at the international level, holds a special place in the history of Australian football. De Lyster’s journey from his early days in the Netherlands to representing Australia on Read more…
By: Yvette Paulusz Introduction The Dutch Burghers descend from VOC personnel who were employed by the Company to manage their trading operations, and administer the territory which the Company had acquired in Ceylon (Sri Lanka). Research into the occupations of the Founders of families during VOC times indicates that very Read more…
Johannes Jan Nicolaas de Voogd, known as Jan, was born in January 1932 in Japan to Dutch parents, Nicolaas Arie Johannes (Niek) de Voogd (1899-1977) and Amarintia Clasina de Vries (1903-1998). Jan’s parents married in 1930 in Kattendijke in Zeeland, the Netherlands. At the time his father Niek was an Read more…