Kemp, Johannes van der

Dr Johannes Theodorus van der Kemp (17 May 1747 in Rotterdam – 15 December 1811 in Cape Town) was a military officer, doctor, and philosopher who became a missionary in South Africa.

The second son of Cornelius van der Kemp, a minister and Rotterdam's leading reformed clergyman, and Anna Maria van Teylingen, he attended the Latin schools of Rotterdam and Dordrecht. He subsequently enrolled at the University of Leiden in 1763 where he studied medicine, but when his elder brother Didericus was appointed as professor of church history he abandoned his studies. At an early age he attended the University of Leyden, where he progressed rapidly, and where his brother was later a professor of divinity.

Army career
Soon after college van der Kemp joined the Dragoon Guards rank of Captain of Horse and a Lieutenant of the Dragoon Guards Ignoring his religious principles, he fathered an illegitimate child, Johanna ("Antje"), an affair to which he described as being “ the slave of vice and ungodliness”, and where brought up his child himself. In 1778 he fell in love with Christina ("Stijntje") Frank (d. 1791). He lived with her for a year before being reprimanded by the Prince of Orange on this irregular state of affairs. As a result, he both married Stijntje, on 29 May 1779, and quit the army after serving for sixteen years.