John Hoogenbos is the character in the Hoogenbos family tree who intrigues me for two reasons. First, he is the only person about whom the facts are incomplete, inaccurate and sometimes simply wrong. Secondly my personal fascination with anything maritime combined with a curiosity about a mariners life during the dangers of world war I.

In chronological order what I now know for fact:
Johannes (John) Hoogenbos born on 27-12-1868 in Amsterdam as the son of Johannes Hoogenbos (1830-1902), coachbuilder and Elisabeth Vermeulen (1830-1902). From 1870 he grew up in Dordrecht (just south of Rotterdam) in a roman catholic family with three brothers and one sister. His father continued the coach building business there and three of his sons followed him in his profession.

Not John. He went to sea. When and how precisely I don't know. Already in 1887 - at the age of nineteen - he had had a resident address in England and was a sailor. In 1888 he went back to the Netherlands for 6 months to do his national service in the Dutch navy as a rating in HMS Hyena, a coastal defense ram monitor. He probably went back to Britain soon after. Between 1889 and 1898 nothing specific is found about his life.

Between 1898 and 1915 his name starts appearing in Dutch ship movement registrations published in newspapers next to the names of several sailing barges he was in charge of. Their names: Lord Tennyson (1898-1904), MARY & KATE (1904-1911), CARISBROOKE CASTLE (1911-1915). The frequent ship movement data show a pattern. He would typically sail from London to Rotterdam and Dordrecht and in many cases would continue up the Rhine river into Germany to deliver and collect cargo. A round trip like this could be made 4-6 times a year, depending on whether conditions. Other frequent trips would be from London to Antwerp, Dunkirk, Channel Islands and between British East coast ports.

On February 28th 1906 he marries Maria (Marie) Catharina Josepha van Breugel at the registry office in London Whitechapel, where they give their resident address as onboard the ship Mary and Kate at Saint Katharine's dock. Their life continues together from thereon. They are both 37 years old.
At this point in time Marie van Breugel of course had had a life of her own already:
She was born in Antwerpen on April 19th 1868 as the daughter of Franciscus van Breugel (a Dutchman from Someren, 1834-1877), cooper by profession, and his second wife Adrienne van Steen (Belgian from Roux near Charleroi 1840-1920).

Marie was the oldest child, she had a younger sister Louise (Ludovica Catharina) who marries Danish Niels Peter Nielsen in 1888. There are other names of children, two boys and a girl, but none of them seem to have survived to adulthood. A matter for further investigation.

When her father dies, Marie is only 9 years old. Her mother runs a lodging for workmen and skippers at Kuipersstraat 24 in Antwerpen as a means of creating an income for herself and her children. She remarries, this time to one of her lodgers, a younger man called Joannes Castermans (* Geulle, 1849), beer transporter by profession.

In 1884 at the young age of 16 Marie marries for the first time. With barge skippers in her family it is not surprising she marries a sailor: Johann Friedrich Wilhelm Honnens , born on February 16th 1857 - so 11 years her senior - in Flensburg Northern Germany as the son of Danish parents. From 1877 he works first as a sailor, later as a boatswain for the Antwerpen based Red Star Line, one of the passenger shipping companies which bring many emigrants to New York.

A police report in 1890 tells the story of their separation. When he returns from a trip it appears she has sold their furniture and other possession and has moved to a different address in Antwerpen. The specific reason why she left is as yet unknown.

In 1908 she is back in Antwerpen together with John Hoogenbos whom she married two years before. Because he is not a Belgian citizen, they have to report to the immigration police and fill out a form to get a permit of residence for 6 month. The form also reveals more about Maries life since 1890. She states in the form that she is the widow of Honnens, and she has in Dunkirk divorced her second husband, a Belgian by the name of Pierre Celestin Salmon. No trace so far has been found of the death of Honnens or the marriage and divorce of Salmon. John apparently is the third husband.

It was not unusual that a master mariners wife lived on board the ship together with her husband, certainly during the periods of milder weather. Since John and Marie did not have children there was little to keep her ashore. After Antwepen they appear to have moved to Britain,. The 1911 census shows them living at 66 Orchard road (later Ancona Road) in Plumstead. They share their accommodation with another family. Although they have reportedly also briefly lived in Whitstable in 1917, Plumstead was to be their home address for the rest of their lives.

End of July 1914 John and Marie sail up the Rhine river as usual to pick up cargo in Germany and they anchor at Remagen. On August 1, 1914 Germany mobilizes, on that same day German authorities come aboard their ship, the sailing barge CARISBROOKE CASTLE, flying the British flag and place it under embargo. They are made prisoner on board their ship. In October 1914 Marie escapes internment and flees to Holland - then a neutral country - and travels back to Britain. How she escapes is not known. In March 1915 John - as a citizen of neutral Holland - is released and handed a new Dutch passport to travel back to Holland and onward home to Plumstead. The ship remains impounded till November 1918 and returns home in February 1919.

From his return to Britain in spring 1915 till June 1917 John again works as a Master on the sailing barge Lord Hamilton of Malvern. Where he goes with her and why this ends is yet not known. From June 1917 till probably the end of the war he worked as river craft foreman for R.J. Pipers wharf in Greenwich.

In 1916 John applies for naturalization as a British citizen, which does not go smoothly because procedures have not been properly followed, after handing the procedure over to a lawyer his citizenship is finally approved in 1920. In 1923 he has his name changed to John Heywood, Marie becomes Mary Heywood. They now have voting rights and appear to the electoral roll.

From ship movement registrations in Antwerpen we know that John went back to sea sailing the barges Consul (1924), Nell Jess (1926), and Ethel Edith (1929).No further registrations are known in December 2013.

There is no information about the rest of their lives until their death in 1937 (John), and 1960 (Marie). They are both buried in Plumstead cemetery, Greenwich. On her death certificate is mentioned as informant about her death: Henri Jules Nielsen, her nephew, the son of her sister Ludovica Catharina (Louise).

Rob Hoogenbos,
Wassenaar, April 2014,