Johan van Angelbeek

Johan van Angelbeek

Drawing of van Angelbeek from the Journal of the Dutch Burgher Union of Ceylon, 1916
Governor of Dutch India
In office
1787–1794
36th Governor of Ceylon
In office
15 July 1794  16 February 1796
Preceded by Willem Jacob van de Graaf
Succeeded by Post abolished
Succeeded by British governors of Ceylon
Personal details
Born 1727
Wittmund
Died 2 September 1799
Colombo, Ceylon
Ex voto à la mémoire de Lady Iakomina Lever épouse du gouverneur Johan Gerard van Angelbeek.- Colombo

Johan Gerard van Angelbeek, (1727, Wittmund 2 September 1799, Colombo)[1] was a Dutch colonial officer who commanded Dutch forces on the island of Ceylon during the colony's final year in the Dutch Empire before its seizure by a British expeditionary force.

Van Angelbeek was born in East Frisia in 1727 and in 1754 travelled to India and Batavia, returning to the Netherlands in 1755. In 1756, he joined the Dutch East India Company returning to the Indian Ocean and serving as a merchant at Batavia and in Bengal. In 1764 he took an official position in the capital of Dutch Ceylon at Colombo and in 1767 moved to the port of Tuticorin in India, serving as Koopman and eventually becoming senior official of the port in 1770, retaining the position until 1783.[2]

In 1783, Van Angelbeek was made governor of Malabar, and in 1787 was appointed as the governor of all Dutch India. In 1794, during the French Revolutionary Wars, Van Angelbeek took command of the Dutch colony of Ceylon, and was in command when a British expeditionary force arrived the following year. Most of the Dutch ports fell rapidly, Colombo the last to surrender in February 1796. He remained in Colombo during the British occupation, dying in 1799. He was the last Dutch governor of the colony as the British retained it for 152 years. He was married to Jacomina Lever and had two children, both his son Christian and his son-in-law Willem Jacob van de Graaf were prominent in the administration of the Dutch Indian Ocean colonies.[2]

References

Government offices
Preceded by
Willem Jacob van de Graaf
Governor of Zeylan
1787-1794
Succeeded by
Post abolished
Succeeded by British governors of Ceylon
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.