Sepia Saturday 180: A Life on the Ocean Wave

The Sepia Saturday image prompt this week reminded me of maritime uniforms, even though it was taken in quite a different setting, and I'll take the opportunity to use some images relating to this theme from my own family collection. You're welcome to start the music below to get you in the mood with an appropriate soundtrack, and then read on.




Willem Hendrik Schipper (1882-1932)
Photo button (12.4mm diameter) by unidentified photographer
Image © and collection of Brett Payne
We all have those relatives who appear in family albums, but about whom we know very little, and my great-uncle Willem Hendrik Schipper is one of those. Surviving genealogical records are mainly centred around an individual's birth, marriage and death. Census enumerations, which add to the basics in generating a basic framework of family history research in the United Kingdom, Canada and the United States, have not been kept in the the Netherlands. As a result, all I have to anchor the dates of a biographical history for Willem, since never married or had any children, are his birth in 1882 at The Hague and his death at sea in 1932, somewhere between Sierra Leone and Amsterdam.


There are a few documents and items of ephemera which fill in some of the gaps, such as a "Testimonial of Attendance" for Willem at the Ambachtschoool te 's-Gravenhage, dated 1 July 1899, and a funeral notice in the form of a newspaper clipping. However, what we do have are plenty of photographs, both loose and in a loose-leaved album compiled by his younger sister (my great-aunt Gien) in the 1920s and 1930s. Using these, I have been able to piece together more of a story.


Hendrik (Harry) Jan & Willem Hendrik Schipper, c.1901-1905
Cabinet card by unidentified photographer
Image © and courtesy of H.A.W. Payne
My grandmother and her three older siblings grew up in The Hague, where their father Jan Schipper (1857-1921) worked as secretary to the Director of Queen Wilhelmina's Cabinet at The Binnenhof. According to my mother (who presumably learned it from her mother, since Willem died when she was only eighteen months old), Jan Schipper became very embittered after a disagreement with his new boss, perhaps also from being passed over for promotion, which reflected on his behaviour at home and made life very unpleasant for his wife and children. Willem and his younger brother Harry both 'escaped' from this odious atmosphere by joining the merchant navy at a fairly young age.


Willem Schipper, c.1909-1912
Silver gelatin print by unidentified photographer
Image © and courtesy of H.A.W. Payne

Willem Schipper joined Koninklijke Hollandsche Lloyd as an engineer in 1909, where his "zeal and devotion to duty earned him quick promotion." He appears to have spent most of his early service in the Dutch East Indies at a time when the Empire was reaching its maximum extent. The photograph above shows him in front of a lifeboat on an unknown ship, with what I believe is the rank of 2nd Engineer.

Willem Schipper (at right) and friends, Weltevreden, Batavia, c.1910-1915
Studio portrait, silver gelatin print (96 x 61mm) by unknown photographer
Image © and collection of Brett Payne
Life in the tropics was not all work and no play, as is amply demonstrated by this studio portrait of Willem relaxing with two friends or colleagues in Weltevreden, the suburb of Batavia (then capital of the Dutch East Indies, now Jakarta) which housed the Dutch administrative headquarters. The cigarette in his right hand is indicative of what would becopme a life-long habit - rarely does Willem appear in photographs without a cigarette or pipe.


Batavia, 1910-1915, courtesy of YouTube
This series of silent film clips which I found on YouTube were probably taken from a moving motor vehicle, which must have been one of the few in Batavia at that time. It gives a very good feel fpor the ambience of the colonial suburbs and busy merchant quarters, complete with wagons, carriages, rickshaws and trams. Another YouTube film of 1920s life in Java includes a clip showing the arrival of a ship at the wharf, together with crowds of colonial men in their whites and solar topees.


Suikerfabriek (Sugar factory), Soemberhardjo, Java, c.1912-1915
Silver gelatin print mosaic (161 x 98mm) by unidentified photographer
Image © and collection of Brett Payne
Willem must also have found time for some leisure travel, as demonstrated by this mosaic of a sugar factory at Soemberhardjo in central Java pasted into his sister's album. The factory was built in 1912, thus providing an earliest date for the photograph, and is apparently still operating, complete with geriatric steam locomotives used for hauling the sugar cane.


2nd Engr. Willem Schipper and friends on board S.S. Gelria, c.1913-1916
Silver gelatin print by unknown photographer
Image © and collection of Brett Payne
There are several photographs in the album taken on board the SS Gelria, a passenger steamer in service with KHL from May 1913 to March 1916 and again from 1919 to 1931, and it seems likely that Willem served on this ship during the earlier period. The Netherlands retained neutrality during the Great War and their ships continued to operate. The image above shows Willem (seated at left) apparently being congratulated on his promotion to Senior 2nd Engineer by Kapitein Brunt, Junior 2nd Engineer Visser and 1st Marconist (wireless operator) Vuyck.


Willem Schipper and friends on board S.S. Gelria, c.1913-1916
Silver gelatin print by unknown photographer
Image © and collection of Brett Payne
Another group portrait on the Gelria shows him with junior officers, each with only one stripe on their epaulettes, seated on and standing around cane and wicker furniture in a more formal arrangement.


Willem Schipper and friends, off Calabar, West Africa, c.1920s
Silver gelatin print (71 x 102mm) by unknown photographer
Image © and collection of Brett Payne
En route from Amsterdam to the East Indies the ships often paused off the coast of West Africa. Willem and his colleagues took advantage of the opportunity to barter for curios with the locals who paddled out to the ship at anchor in the port of Calabar in Nigeria.


Willem Schipper and friends, SS Prins der Nederlanden, c.1920s
Silver gelatin print (85 x 111mm) by unknown photographer
Image © and collection of Brett Payne
The steamship Prins der Nederlanden was a passenger ship of the SMN line (Stoomvaart Maatschappij Nederland/Netherlands Steamship Co.) which operated between 1914 and 1935, so I must presume that Willem was a guest on board when this group photo was taken.


Willem Schipper on board the S.S. Zeelandia, c.1915-1920
Silver gelatin print by unknown photographer
Image © and courtesy of H.A.W. Payne
After some years in the East Indies, illness forced a return to the Netherlands, but he was quickly offered a position on the Royal Dutch Lloyd ship SS Gaasterland. On this and other ships, perhaps including the SS Zeelandia (above), he spent at least a decade plying the trade routes of the North and South Atlantic, calling in at ports on the coasts of several continents.


Unidentified ship, possibly at a South American port, c.1920s
Silver gelatin print (87 x 58mm) by unknown photographer
Image © and collection of Brett Payne
I found several crew lists from the SS Gaasterland arriving in New York in 1920 and 1921 but, juding from number of photographs from South America in the album, supplemented by a postcard sent to his recently widowed mother from Buenos Aires in July 1921, most of his trips headed further south. The print above shows timber and other goods being loaded from a wharf onto a cargo ship (or possibly unloaded) which unfortunately has part of its name clipped, leaving only "...LAND ...ERDAM" visible at the stern.


Unidentified ship, Patagonische Kanalen (Patagonian Channels), c.1920s
Silver gelatin print (87 x 116mm) by unknown photographer
Image © and collection of Brett Payne
Some of his journeys ventured a little further afield almost into the Pacific, visiting the western coast of Chile via the Patagonian Channels. This ship also appears to be carrying a cargo of timber on the deck.


Willem Schipper (at right) and colleagues at work, c.1920s
Silver gelatin print (78 x 91mm) by unknown photographer
Image © and collection of Brett Payne
In a rare shot, Willem appears in his working clothes with two colleagues, apparently engaged in some real work (or at least supervising it), the now ever present pipe clasped firmly in his right hand. Another shows a group of people repairing a winch aboard the SS Rijnland.


Willem Schipper and friend, Funchal, Madeira, c.1920s
Silver gelatin print (67 x 109mm) by unknown photographer
Image © and collection of Brett Payne

Criss-crossing the Atlantic regularly allowed them to stop off periodically in Funchal, the capital town of the Portuguese island of Madeira, where they stayed at the Grand Hotel Belmonte, strolled through the municipal gardens, wandered the narrow cobbled alleys, and caught a ride from Monte down the steep streets on mountain basket sledges, which still catch the unwary tourist today.

Chief Engineer Willem Schipper and colleagues, c.1930
Silver gelatin print (64 x 98mm) by unknown photographer
Image © and collection of Brett Payne
In late 1931, while on a voyage of the coast of West Africa, Willem became very ill and he wrote to his sister and brother-in-law just before Christmas that he had seen doctors in Grand Bassam (Cote D'Ivoire) and Freetown (Sierra Leone), who diagnosed heart problems. He rested for a short while at the Grand Hotel in Freetown, but died on board ship somewhere between Sierra Leone and Amsterdam on 12 February 1932. A letter to his mother from an Evangelical Lutheran Missionary who travelled with him off the West African coast makes it clear that he "felt that he would not live long."


Silver ashtray, possibly from East Indies
Collection of Brett Payne
I inherited this rather battered and well used silver ashtray from my Dutch grandparents some years ago, and even used it for a while until I gave up smoking. I always thought that the engraving had a somewhat oriental look to it, but it wasn't until recently, when I started examining the photographs in Aunt Gien's album in greater detail, that I realised that it may well have been picked up by Willem in Dutch colonial Batavia. The maker's marks on the base don't mean much to me, but perhaps a knowledgeable reader will recognise them and enlighten me. I'm not sure that I feel quite the same way about it, now that I know it may have been so closely associated with Willem's heart disease, and therefore his death.