A Potted History

A communication by email between my father David Rawstorne M and his relative David Peter M:

Potted History of the Metelerkamp Family

It seems certain that the family originally came from Germany and later spread around the world via South Africa. Legend refers to a Roman Catholic priest who became disenchanted with his Church’s doctrine, probably at the time of the Reformation taking place in Europe.

He was purported to have left his post and to have moved to the Bentheim area, where he either bought or leased a farm with the name of Metelerkamp. As the Catholic Church was very powerful at that time, he feared for his life, and took the name of the farm as his own. He must have married soon afterwards and perhaps this was a further good reason for him to seek anonymity.

Whatever the true story may be, there is no doubt that this family have been in this area for a long time, and that they have occupied this quite well known farm for some time. The area around Bentheim Mountain was, in feudal times, under the control of local aristocratic counts and princes. They in turn allowed peasants to occupy the land in return for which they paid taxes and were expected to help defend the castle against attack. Knights or “burgermanne” (professional soldiers) were also employed and were awarded portions of the lands in return for which they had to organize the militia and fight with them to defend the castle. These rights were handed down within families and thus names became associated with farms occupied by that family.

Hermann Metelerkamp, who lives in Nordhorn, which is about 20km from Bentheim, has researched the history of the area and has found records of all the“burgermanne” dating from 1401 to1606. It seems that the name of the farm may have been established as early as 1259 when a van Metelen family are recorded as one of the “burgermanne” who were engaged by the Count of Bentheim. The word “kamp” covers a field suitable for agricultural purposes, so it is not inconceivable that the farm they occupied became known as Metelenkamp later to be established as Metelerkamp. In 1848 the occupiers of farms were able to buy their land and the Metelerkamp family became the owners of this farm which they still occupy to this day. ([see the Meteler feld page further on in this website])

From the Reehorst Genealogy of the Metelerkamp family, his early records seem to show that the brothers Hendrik and Arent Metelercamp, who were both born in Bentheim in 1661 and 1686 respectively, were the first to move to Amsterdam in about 1697 when Hendrik was married there. Hendrik was a tailor and Arent was a shoemaker.

At about this time there seemed to be a general move to the Netherlands by family members and the South African connection later arose from this source. Rugter Metelerkamp was born on 4^th December 1780 in Zwolle where his father was the mayor. The family had moved from Bentheim in Prussia in 1715. Both his father and grandfather were lawyers, so he came from a comfortable background.

Europe was in turmoil at this stage and it is possible that this caused Rutger to join the Asiatic Council and sail for Batavia. On the voyage out he stopped over in Cape Town. Whatever caused him to move, the fact is that he arrived back in Cape Town from Batavia on 2nd November 1803. In January 1804 he was granted permission to remain at the Cape for three years and a month later he married Maria Christina Hoets, whom he had met at the stopover in Cape Town on his voyage out to the East. She was the third daughter of Jan Hoets, a wealthy Cape Town businessman.

For more history of the family in South Africa up to Rutger’s death, see the notes prepared by David Peter Metelerkamp. Both David Peter M and David Rawstorne M are Rutger’s great great grandsons. However the family divided at that point, and more details are needed about Rutger junior and his son Francis William M, David Rawstorne’s grandfather