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"You will be amused to hear that I have taken a little black (a Malay) into my service. He is a dear good boy." So wrote Alice, duchess of Hesse to her mother Queen Victoria in June 1863. "He has no religion, and can neither read nor write. I am going to have him taught and, later, christened. He is very intelligent, thirteen years old."
She added that the lad "was brought over two years ago by a gentleman, to whom he was given away by his own parents as a mark of gratitude for some service done. This man has had him here two years, but has never had him taught any thing." According to the editor of Alice's Letters, published twenty years later, the boy "was brought from Java by Baron Schenk-Schmittburg. His father was a negro, his mother a Javanese."
According to the Royal Collection, he was called Willem Jerve Koetjie, Dutch names that confirm his origin in Java, now Indonesia, which was a colony of the Netherlands. What lay behind Alice's decision to employ Willem remains unknown. The 'Baron Schenk-Schmittburg' belonged to a local Hessian family, but wikipedia knows nothing about him, least of all what he may have been doing in Java in the early 1860s which prompted or obliged a couple of African and Indonesian ancestry to present a German lordling with their son. The account of its being a grateful exchange for service rendered sounds euphemistic: does this imply the family owed a debt to Schenk-Schmittburg that they could not pay in cash? in which case it was essentially a financial transaction. Or was their gratitude also bound up in the belief that service to a European offered good prospects for their son? Can one infer that the Baron accepted the 'gift' of a black boy as a useful or decorative addition to his servantry, but had no real role for him, and was very content to transfer him to the Grand Duchess' household?
Before that, what global trading movements were responsible for the meeting of Willem's parents, a Javanese woman and an African man? Here, the term 'Malay' used by Alice may provide a clue, for Dutch colonial posts were established at both Batavia (now Djakarta) and the Cape of Good Hope in south Africa. In Cape Town, a population group informally known as 'Cape Malay' grew from enslaved labour taken there from the East Indies in the eighteenth century. Willem's father may thus have been from South Africa, perhaps employed by a company trading between Batavia and the Cape, although other migrations across the Indian Ocean are possible.
His names are intriguing, as commonly servants of this rank had but one forename and one surname or sobriquet. Willem of course denotes his Netherlandish origins, as does Koetjie, a diminutive close to the Dutch word for 'calf' that is today a surname in South Africa, while Jerve has connections to France. (but as the transcription of his names in the Royal photo album seems to read 'Jeroe' rather than 'Jerve', perhaps this was simply a second Dutch forename, usually spelt Jeroen). However he travelled from Java to Germany, he carried a full European-style appellation. It was not unusual for servants to move between high-status households, and while to us Willem's experience appears similar to that of a favoured horse or lapdog, his contemporaries doubtless would regard service in the dukedom of Hesse as great good fortune.
True to her intentions, Alice would arrange for Willem's education, so that he learned English as well as whatever language was spoken in the household of Alice's husband, Grand-Duke Louis of Hesse, with its seat in Darmstadt. Before that, however, he travelled in 1863 with his new employer to Britain, where he was photographed by the Court photographer at Balmoral, wearing elaborate, orientalist uniform in the style known as Zouave.
About a fortnight before these photos were taken, Willem was involved in a carriage accident, chronicled by Queen Victoria in a vivid account of the afternoon and evening of 7 October which provides a rare glimpse of at least one of Willem's experiences. With John Brown, a coachman named Smith, the royal sisters Alice and Helena (Lenchen) and Victoria, he was in the group that drove from Balmoral towards Loch Muick, "up and over the Capel Mount in frequent slight snow showers."
Victoria's detailed diary entry is worth quoting at length.
"The view of the green Clova hills covered with snow at the tops, with gleams of sunshine between the showers, was very fine, but it took us a long time, and I was very tired towards the end and felt very sad and lonely. Loch Muich looked beautiful in the setting sun as we came down, and reminded me of many former happy days I spent there. We stopped to take tea at Altnagiuthasach [now spelt Allt-na-giubhsaich] We started at about twenty minutes to seven from Altgnagiuthasach, Brown on the box next Smith, who was driving, little Willem (Alice's black serving boy) behind. It was quite dark when we left, but all the lamps were lit as usual; from the first, however, Smith seemed to be quite confused (and indeed has been much altered of late) and got off the road several times, once in a very dangerous place, when Alice called out and Brown got off the box to show him the way. After that, however, though going very slowly, we seemed to be all right, but Alice was not reassured, and thought Brown's holding up the lantern all the time on the box indicated that Smith could not see where he was going, though the road was as broad and plain as possible. Suddenly, about two miles from Altnagiuthasach and about twenty minutes after we had started, the carriage began to turn upon one side; we called out "What's the matter?" There was an awful pause, during which Alice said "We are upsetting". In another moment - during which I had time to reflect whether we should be killed or not, and thought there were still things I had not settled and wanted to do - the carriage turned over on its side and we were all precipitated to the ground! I came down very hard, with my face upon the ground, near the carriage, the horses both on the ground and Brown calling out in despair "The Lord Almighty have mercy on us! Who did ever see the like of this before? I thought you were all killed." Alice was soon helped up by means of tearing all her clothes to disentangle her; but Lenchen, who had also got caught in her dress, called out very piteously, which frightened me a good deal; but she was also got out with Brown's assistance and neither she nor Alice was at all hurt. I reassured them that I was not hurt, and urged that we should make the best of it, as it was an inevitable misfortune. Smith, utterly confused and bewildered, at length came up to ask if I was hurt. Meanwhile the horses were lying on the ground as if dead, and it was absolutely necessary to get them up again. Alice, whose calmness and coolness were admirable, held one of the lamps while Brown cut the traces, to the horror of Smith, and the horses were speedily released and got up unhurt. There was now no means of getting home except by sending back Smith with the two horses to get another carriage. All this took some time, about half an hour before we got off. By this time I felt that my face was a good deal bruised and swollen and, above all, my right thumb was excessively painful and much swollen; indeed I thought at first it wa s broken, until we began to move it. Alice advised then that we should sit down in the carriage - that is, with the bottom of the carriage as a back - which we did, covered with plaids, little Willem sitting in front, with the hood of his "burnous" over his head, holding a lantern, Brown holding another and being indefatigable in his attention and care. He had hurt his knee a good deal in jumping off the carriage. A little claret was all we could get either to drink or wash my face and hand. Almost directly after the accident happened, I said to Alice it was terrible not to be able to tell it to my dearest Albert, to which she answered "But he knows it all, and I am sure he watched over us"....
"The thought of having to sit here in the road ever so long was, of course, not very agreeable, but it was not cold, and I remembered from the first what my beloved one had always said to me, to make the best of what could not be altered. We had a faint hope at one moment that our ponies might overtake us; but then Brown recollected that they had started before us. We did nothing but talk of the accident and how it could have happened, and how merciful the escape was ,and we all agreed that Smith was quite unfit to drive me again in the dark. We had been sitting here about half an hour when we heard the sound of a voice and horses' hoofs, which came nearer and nearer. To our relief we fond it was our ponies. Kennedy (whom dear Albert liked, and who always went out with him and now generally goes with us) had become fearful of an accident, as we were so long coming; he heard Smith going back, and then, seeing lights moving about, felt convinced something must have happened and therefore rode back to look for us, which was very thoughtful of him, for else we might have sat there till ten o'clock. We mounted our ponies at once and proceeded home, Brown leading Alice's ad my pony, which he would not let go of for fear of another accident. Willem and Lenchen followed, led by Alick Grant. Kennedy carried the lantern in front. It was quite light enough to see the road without a lantern. At the hill where the gate of the deer-fence is, above the distillery, we met the other carriage, again driven by Smith and a number of stable-people come to raise the first carriage, and a pair of horses to bring it home. We preferred, however, riding home which we reached at about twenty minutes to ten o'clock. No one knew what had happened till we told them. Fritz and Louis [Victoria's sons-in-law] were at the door. People were foolishly alarmed when we got upstairs, and made a great fuss. Took only a little soup and fish in my room, and had my head bandaged. I saw the others only for a moment, and got to bed rather late."
I don't recall the movie about Victoria and John Brown well enough to remember whether this incident featured there, but it has filmic potential, on a dark Highland road, with the overturning coach also bringing down the horses, Princess Alice (a noted horsewoman) proving calm and efficient, faithful John Brown indefatigably attentive and young Willem sitting mutely amid the wreckage before riding home on the same mount as Princess Helena. All recovered apart from poor Smith, who inevitably lost his job, and died within months..
Sadly Willem also died, four years later, in Darmstadt, reputedly of pulmonary tuberculosis, although several of the Hesse family died of diptheria, which was a speedier killer. "Every one regrets the poor child, for he was very dear", Alice told her mother. "I miss him so much here, for he did everything for me, and liked being about me and the children. All our servants went to the burial... I was really attached to him, he learnt so well and was in many ways so nice, though of course troublesome at times. How short life is, and the instant one is gone, he is so wiped away for others, and one knows absolutely nothing about the person anymore!"
Alice's affection resulted in the memorial portrait of 'poor Willem' commissioned from the Hesse court painter August Noack
and almost certainly drawn posthumously using photographs and an actual livery jacket with silver trim, which receives as much pictorial attention as the sitter's features. The pose and gesture endow Willem with an expression of sensitive regret, as if bidding his employer farewell. She presented the portrait to her mother, perhaps in memory of the near-fatal carriage drive in the Cairngorms. One only wishes there were more recorded recollections, especially of the times when in true teenage manner Willem was 'troublesome'.
