Livinus Diederik Mattheus van Son

Properties2
tagsperson, officer, dutch, colonial, military, infantry, achehnese, 19th-century, aceh-war, knight, knight-of-military-willemsorde
aliasesL. D. M. van Son, Livinus van Son, Kapitein Van Son, Van Son (Atjeh expedities), 2e luitenant Van Son, 1e luitenant Van Son

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Livinus Diederik Mattheus van Son (3 February 1845, Amsterdam – 20 December 1917, ‘s-Gravenhage) was a Dutch colonial infantry officer of the Netherlands-Indian Army who, as a 2nd and 1st lieutenant of the 9th Battalion Infantry and the expeditionnaire Bataillon Barisan van Madura, took part in both the first and the second Aceh expeditions of 1873 and 1874 — earning the Eereteeken voor belangrijke krijgsbedrijven with clasp and the Atjeh-medaille struck from cannon captured in Atjeh — and who, after promotion to captain in 1881 and an instructional tour with the Barisan of Bangkalan (Madura), retired in 1885 and settled at ‘s-Gravenhage. His family’s later connection with Atjeh — through the death of his daughter Leonie at Koeta Radja in 1904 and the birth of his granddaughter Yvonne Brewer at Indrapoera in Groot-Atjeh the same year — gives his biography a multi-generational Atjeh dimension rare in the colonial record.

Family and antecedents

Van Son was the son of Theodorus Cornelis van Son (23 February 1814, Breda – 18 June 1883, Nieuwer Amstel) — a clerk (kantoorbediende) of Amsterdam — and Elisabeth Geertruida Maria Rijken (6 June 1818, Amsterdam – 11 December 1891, Amsterdam). Through his father he descended from the older line of the Van Son family, which traced itself to the Tilburg Van Broechovens of the fourteenth century. The genealogy — the *Geschiedenis en genealogie* of H. J. A. van Son — places Livinus Diederik Mattheus in the generation XIa of Tak B (the “Breda–Amsterdam” branch).

Commission and the Aceh expeditions (1873–1874)

Van Son departed for the Nederlandsch-Indië in 1869. On 16 March 1869 he was appointed by the Governor-General 2nd lieutenant of infantry in the Garnizoens Bataillon der Moluksche eilanden (Garrison Battalion of the Moluccas). He was promoted to 1st lieutenant on 21 August 1873.

In both ranks he took part in the first (March–April 1873) and the second (November 1873 – January 1874) expeditions against Atjeh, serving with the 9th Battalion Infantry and the expeditionnaire Bataillon Barisan van Madura. The genealogy — a family record, not an operational history — preserves only the decorations earned: the Eereteeken voor belangrijke krijgsbedrijven with clasp (the “Decoration for Important War-Operations,” with clasp for the campaign), and the Atjeh-medaille — explicitly identified as “vervaardigd uit het in Atjeh veroverde geschut” (“manufactured from the artillery captured in Atjeh”). The phrase is the only documentary evidence in the source that cannon taken from the Kraton or its dependencies in 1874 were struck into a commemorative medal for the troops.

Promotion to captain and instructorship at Madura (1881–1885)

On 22 March 1881 Van Son was promoted to captain of infantry. He was subsequently appointed kapitein-instructeur (instructor-captain) with the Barisan of Bangkalan on Madura — a training command for indigenous troops of the colonial army. The post was a typical mid-career slot for an infantry captain who had seen active service in Atjeh.

He was pensioned on 7 October 1885 “by reason of completed service” (wegens volbrachte diensttijd), returned to the Netherlands, and settled at ‘s-Gravenhage.

Marriage and the family’s Atjeh connection

Van Son married at Djocjacarta on 8 September 1875 Carolina Weynschenk (27 May 1855, Djocjacarta – 1 December 1912, [‘s-Gravenhage|‘s-Gravenhage]]), daughter of George Lodewijk Weynschenk — a landheer en grooterfpachter (landowner and great-tenant) of Djocjacarta — and Wilhelmina Frederika Krämer, herself the daughter of Ds. Johann Friedrich Krämer, a Batavia predikant, and Catharina Jacoba Charlotte de Gignoux.

Of the six children of the marriage, two had a documented connection to Atjeh:

  1. Leonie van Son (born Palembang, July 1877; died Koeta Radja (Atjeh, Sumatra), 17 November 1904) — who married at Salatiga (Java) on 26 June 1899 Otto Louis Brewer, the future titular major-general of artillery of the K.N.I.L., and who died at Koeta Radja five years later, possibly in connection with her husband’s Atjeh posting. The genealogy records her death-place explicitly as “Koeta Radja (Atjeh, Sumatra).”
  2. Yvonne Caroline Brewer — daughter of Leonie and Otto Louis Brewer — born at Indrapoera (groot Atjeh) on 1 Augustus 1904. Yvonne’s birth at Indrapoera, only a few months before her mother’s death at Koeta Radja, places the Brewer–Van Son household in Groot-Atjeh in the early months of 1904.

The Van Son family’s multi-generational connection with Atjeh — the father’s campaigns of 1873–1874, the son-in-law’s artillery service, the daughter’s death and the granddaughter’s birth in the same year 1904 — is a micro-document of the colonial penetration of Atjeh: the soldier of 1873 becomes, in the next generation, the resident family of 1904.

Other children

The other children of the marriage included Frederika Elisabeth Carolina van Son (born Palembang, 22 June 1876) — who married at [‘s-Gravenhage|‘s-Gravenhage]] on 12 October 1907 Dr. Herman George Heyting, future Resident of Banjoemas; Adeline van Son (born Palembang, 10 October 1878) — who married at [‘s-Gravenhage|‘s-Gravenhage]] on 27 October 1908 her brother-in-law Otto Louis Brewer, the widower of her sister Leonie; Mr. Egbert Louis Matheus van Son (born Djocjacarta, 19 October 1880), who became vice-president of the Raad van Justitie at Soerabaja; Maria van Son (born Amsterdam, 27 February 1882), who married at [‘s-Gravenhage|‘s-Gravenhage]] on 11 October 1906 Jan Willem Herman Hamilton of Silvertonhill, a retired lieutenant-colonel of the Jagers; and Mr. Louis van Son (born Djocjacarta, 7 February 1884), who became a senior official of the Netherlands-Indian Government.

Death and retirement

Van Son died at ‘s-Gravenhage on 20 December 1917, thirty-two years after his retirement from the army. His widow Carolina Weynschenk had predeceased him by five years, dying at [‘s-Gravenhage|‘s-Gravenhage]] on 1 December 1912.

Significance

Van Son’s significance for the encyclopedia of Achehnese history lies in three particulars. First, his presence in both the first and second Aceh expeditions makes him one of the documented company of the Atjeh-oorlog in its opening campaigns — a company that includes Köhler (who fell in the first expedition) and the officers of Van Swieten’s command in the second. Second, his recorded receipt of the Atjeh-medaille struck from captured Atjehnese cannon is a rare documentary witness to the medal’s manufacture from enemy metal — a fact generally asserted in the medal’s standard descriptions but seldom so explicitly stated in a primary genealogical record. Third, the multi-generational Atjeh connection of the Van Son family — campaigns in the 1870s, family residence and death in 1904 — exemplifies the way the Atjeh war-zone, opened by the military, became in the next generation a site of colonial family life.

See Also

Source

Geschiedenis en genealogie van het geslacht Van Son, eertijds geheeten Van Broechoven, by H. J. A. van Son, Deel III: De Oudere Linie (Vervolg tot heden) (Dordrecht: Schefferdrukkerij, 1951), pp. 36–37 (Tak B, generation XIa).

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