Couperus Reminiscences
Return to Africa - The Second Expedition.
As mentioned earlier, according to the Frisian emigration archives, my Dad left for Africa again on Sinterklaas day (5 December) 1932.
Foolishly I never questioned him closely about the details of this trip, and he died before I realised how little the family actualy knew about the circumstances and what all happened..
Screenshot of Frisian Archives web-page Fortunately, I did realise that Tante Jans (second wife of Piet Oosterchrist) would know some of the details and I asked her to write them down not long before she died. I reproduce the letter below with some editorial comments inserted by me like this in italics to clarify and explain certain references.
Here is the letter she sent me:
Dear Jitze
I will try to enlighten you on the subject of your Dad.
I now think that the Billiton Maatschappij (Billiton Company a Dutch outfit known for mining around the world) had a partner in this exploration project in East Afric. This was probably the British Tin Smelting Co.
Some of the staff for the expedition to The Mountains of The Moon (Ruwenzori Mountains in Western Uganda) came from the Dutch East Indies, and some from Holland & some the U.K.. Your dad was one of them. The Baroness he worked for originally had connections with British Tin Smelting Co,
Another member of the party was Miss Ledeboer, a geologist. Her family lived in the U.K., and were bankers (Twentsche Bank). Her sister was an architect in London.
Apart from the prospectors, they needed a man who drove around to all the camps bringing provisions, mail, medicines, collecting the sick etc. etc. The prospectors, including Miss Ledeboer, were living all by themselves in the bush. No car, no cycle, just their feet. I think the Company owned two cars.
The boss and his 2nd in command (both mining-engineers) lived with their families in Mbarara, complete with governess for the children. Your Dad lived there too, but was on safari ( i.e. travelling around the country) a lot. He often had to go to Kampala (the main town/center of civilization in Uganda) to buy things not available in Mbarara in the local duka (shop) run by Jetha Ismail.
In comes George Ismail. He was one of the two lawyers available in Kampala in those days. He had a finger in every pie. He owned that garage behind Barclays Bank, and his office was there. He also had a finger in the Uganda Herald (In those days a 2-sheet newspaper and the only one in Uganda). He had somebody working for him looking for gold. In short he had lots of fingers in various pies, and somehow was connected with, or was the lawyer for the Billiton Company.
I do not know if your Dad left the Billiton before they stopped this expedition ( i.e. it came to an end - other documents show that indeed he was let go with a letter of recommendation when the expedition was closed down and stating the shut-down as a reason) . I think so, and that was when he started to work for George Ismael. You see a certain Count Davico (Italian) appears on the scene, and he does exactly all the work your Dad used to do. Not exactly. Your Dad did not court Miss Ledeboer, but Count Davico did. Later on they owned a coffee-shamba (small plantation) in Tanganyika. They are mentioned in the book "Behind God’s back" (by Elspeth Huxley I think).
Everybody is in the family-way (incl.his wife) and "that would please Mussolini very much", the count said.
They did not stay together, she lived somewhere in the south of the U.K. with her children. We met her and her sister in Amsterdam in the seventies.
I know Your Dad and my Peter (Oosterchrist) traveled together on a ship, but I do not know if they were going to Holland, or returning to Africa. (They travelled together by ship both on the return home from the first expedition as well as outbound to Africa on the second expedition) At one of the parties they played “Pat & Patterson”, and your Dad carried Peter under his arm into the ballroom. They won a prize for this performance. (Later on they did the same performance in a Dutch version called “Wat en Half-Wat” which then changed again into a English version called “Wit and Half-Wit)
When the Billiton stopped (i.e. closed down) their expedition in East.Africa., they kept a share in the mine in Mwirisandu, alluvial gold-mining in the neighborhood of the Kazinga-Channel. and a tin-mine in Kyerwa (Tanganyika – now Tanzania). Arie Speyer, who was also a member of the original expedition became manager of Mwirisandu.
I do not think, that Rempt was a member of the expedition. (Dick Rempt had quit to work for himself at the end of the first expedition) was another name from the past and a Dutchman in Uganda. My Peter (Oosterchrist) & Jan Compaan (also a Dutchman imported for this expedition) got Kyera in tribute (i.e. in lieu of payment) and asked Dick Rempt. to work for them. Later on when Peter (Oosterchrist) and Jan Compaan. fell out, Rempt took Peter’s side. Peter went on leave back to Holland in 1936, and Rempt also took on a job from George Ismail. working an alluvial-gold claim somewhere in the Inpenetrable Forest in Kigezi. He got curious about a leopard-trap and walked in. (My Dad said that Rempt had a bad case of malaria and probably was delirious) Rempt got the whole lot of heavy stones on top of him, and now lies in the church-yard of Kabale.(A town in Western Uganda at the foot of the Ruwenzori Mountains). Your Dad and Mum were living in Kampala at the time and had a lot of trouble on account of this tragedy.
(The reason for this trouble was that Dick Rempt had written home to his family some wildly exaggerated letters about how rich he was becoming from all the gold and/or diamonds he was mining. On his death the family wanted to know what happened to all the gold and diamonds and were convinced there had been foul play)
I (Jans Oosterchrist) of course was not there at the time (She mentions above that Piet returned to Europe on leave in 1936 which is when I think they got married) but thinking it over I am pretty certain that your Dad started his African career in Africa with the Billiton company
Jans Oosterchrist
Thus my father arrived back in Uganda to work in the role of a general kind of support person for the mining and prospecting camps, but now in the employ of Billiton rather than The Baroness.
Panning the silt along the river bank.
Further panning back at camp to refine and assess the collected material. Some of the work was to perform further prospecting for minerals, but the company had also purchased some mining rights in areas where they thought there might be alluvial gold that could be panned out of the rivers in that area - hoping for an easy "quick return" to keep the shareholders of the company happy while they looked for any substantial deposits of other minerals.
But reading between the lines of Jans Oosterchrist's letter above as well as what I gathered from my Dad, "Miss Ledeboer" who was a geologist on the expedition (and as a "professional" was probably senior to my Dad who was basically a glorified errand boy) became enamored of the Italian "Count Davico" and pulled strings for him to take over the job my Dad had.
This might have been a problem except that during his brief stay in Holland between the two expeditions, and at the request of George Ismail, my Dad had looked around to identify companies in Holland that might be interested and suited to opening an import/export business in Uganda. One of the names he came up with was that of a company based in the town of Enschede in the province of Twente in Holland. I mention this location because it helps in understanding the name of the company "Twetsche Overseas Trading Company" (or in Dutch "Twentsche Overzee Handelmaatschappij".
This company had been founded in 1920 by a consortium of textile factories in the Province of Twente to export their cotton textiles for which the region was well known.
An early travelling office of The Twentsche Overseas Trading Company Ltd. This company had come to my Dad's attention because he found out that they already had an office in Mombasa, the main port city on the coast of Kenya and through which one invariably had to pass to gain access to the hinterlands of Kenya and Uganda. There was no other way in the absence of air transport which had not yet arrived in those parts.
He and George Ismail accordingly approached the manager of the company in Mombasa (a Mr Oostdam) about the possibility of opening up a branch in Uganda. The timing was fortuitous because a member of the Board of Directors of the Dutch company just happened to be on an inspection visit to Mombasa and had already suggested that a branch office be opened in Nairobi (the main town in Kenya) - so a suggestion that a branch be simultaneously opened in Kampala (the main town in Uganda) - and for which an Dutchman with local experience was already available to set up the operation - what could be better?
And thus it was the a branch of the "Twentsche Overzee Handelmaatschappij" was established in Kampala, with Mr E.G. Couperus as its first manager.
But while all this was going on, another event occurred which was to have a significant impact on the subsequent course of the Family History.
