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Koopman

| Introduction | Origins of Koopman | Opa GW Koopman |
| Early years in Surabaya | Surabaya connection to Scotland? |
| Oom Chris Koopman | Dutch Club in Singapore | Family time in Singapore |

Oom Chris Koopman

In 2006 I joined the Association of Dutch Businessmen (ADB) in Singapore and attended one of their meetings in October or November of that year. The ADB uses the premises of the Dutch Club in Singapore, a beautiful location in the area where there are many embassies.

Just after the meeting I was looking around the entrance at the old wooden registers of past presidents. I had an inexplicable feeling there might be some connection to our family past. I asked some people, but the wooden registers did not go beyond 1945, so on my way out I collected an annual report of the club. This contained a register of presidents back to the start of the club in 1907. It seemed to me that maybe Omi's uncle Chris had been a member at one stage, as she had told me that Oom Chris was in Singapore in the early 1900's and had been buried there. Through the months I was working in Singapore I had wanted to do a search, but did not make much progress, commuting each Friday to return to Penang for weekends, without much free time to start and complete a search.

To my surprise I found the name JC Koopman mentioned a number of times, as a president in the first years of starting up the Dutch Club, and subsequently, in the years after the first world war. This piqued my interest and I subsequently contacted the president of the club, Mr Andrew Baartscheer, who was writing a book for the club centenary in 2007. It turned out that Oom Chris had been instrumental in establishing the Dutch Club in 1907, when he was based in Singapore as a General Manager of a French trading company. Below an overview provided to me by Mr Baartscheer on the basis of his research.

Apparently, Oom Chris used to play soccer with the other Dutch expatriates in Singapore and they had collectively decided to establish a club for Dutch expatriates. Oom Chris' brother, my great grandfather, also used to play as a goal keeper. I have once seen a medal for the team, FC Voorthuizen, when they won their league championship in 1901. The original Dutch Club was in one of the villas owned by Oom Chris, in Grange Road in Singapore. Click through to "The Dutch Club in Singapore".

Click to "Dutch Club in Singapore".