Joan (John) Teschemaker

Awarded the compensation for the Amersfoort estate in Demerara with Thomas Teschemaker (q.v.).

He was the son of Joan Teschemaker (1759-1820) and Alida Esther Thierens (1768-1818). He had a younger brother Frederick Thomas Emmanuel Teschemaker (known as Thomas Teschemaker, q.v.), and three other siblings.

In 1801 the Teschemaker family returned to Britain, where Thomas was born that year. The 1802 Treaty of Amiens provided a temporary truce to hostilities between Britain and France, so the family moved back to Holland, but the truce was broken in 1803 when Britain declared war on France. France invaded Holland, and the Dutch economy almost collapsed. The Teschemaker parents lost most of their Dutch assets and decided to return to Demerara, but they left John (he adopted an anglicised version of Joan) to be educated in England. He went to Exeter College, Oxford, and then to Leyden to study law. He enrolled in the Volunteer Cavalry in 1815, and was present at the Battle of Waterloo. Then in 1819 John and his brother Thomas returned to Demerara.

On 21 February 1822 John married Ann Shute at St Marylebone, and they subsequently had eight children. In the 1830s he was living in Ilfracombe, and in the 1840s in Tiverton, but by the 1850s he was settled in Exmouth. The 1851 Census shows him at 9 Claremont Terrace, Littleham, Exmouth. He is recorded as aged 54, doctor of civil law and fund holder, born in Demerara. Also there is his wife Ann, aged 52, born in Sydenham, as well as six children and two servants. The 1861 Census shows him living at the same address, with his wife Ann, and unmarried daughter C.I. (i.e. Catherine Isabella). Also there are two visitors: his married daughter H.M. (i.e. Henrietta Maria), and her blind husband E. (i.e. Edgar) Musgrave.

John’s son William was the first member of the Teschemaker family to head off to New Zealand in the early 1850s, but in the following years many other family members followed. He eventually established sheep runs at Taipo Hill on the South Island, ten miles south west of Oamaru. Being an early settler, his life out there was significant in the history of North Otago.2

The will of John Teschemaker D.C.L. proved 29/04/1867 at Exeter, effects under £1500.

We are grateful to Peter Wingfield-Digby for compiling this entry.

Information on the lives of several Teschemakers and Thierens in New Zealand can be found in the handwritten notes available in the Macdonald Collection at the Canterbury Museum: https://collection.canterburymuseum.com/objects?query=teschemaker&limit=25 [accessed 27/11/2019].

National Probate Calendar 1867.

Position at Leyden: 1814, 26.Oct. Joan [sic] Tesschemaker [sic] e Demerary Indus Occid. 20, J. a. s. 2. (Album Studiosorum Academiae Lugduno Batavae MDLXXXV-MDCCCLXXV, kol. 1233); 1817, 14 Martii Specimen, continens Quaestiones aliquot selectas ex Titulo: ad Legem Aquiliam, defensum a Joanne Teschemaker, ex Colonia Essequebo Batavo, pro Doctoratu Juris Romani ae Hodierni. (Annales Academiae Lugduno-Batavae, ad. VIII Februarii A MDCCCXVII ad. d. VIII Februarii MDCCCXVIII : Series Dissertationum Inauguralium Publice defensarum inde a d. 8 Februarii 1817, ad d. 8 Februarii 1818, p. 10). (Album Promotorum van de Rijksuniversiteit Leiden 1813-1900 / [samengest. door] M.J. van Lieburg & F.A. van Lieburg. - Amsterdam [etc.] : Medisch-Encyclopedisch Instituut, Faculteit Geneeskunde VU, 1985, p. 10).

We are grateful to Stanley Robert Criens for the reference to Leyden.