John Ricus Couperus

John Ricus Couperus
John Ricus Couperus
Born	(1816-02-24)24 February 1816 Batavia, Dutch East Indies
Died	13 October 1902(1902-10-13) (aged 86) The Hague, Netherlands
Occupation	member of the Council of Justice in Padang and member of the High Military Court of the Dutch East Indies.
Years active	1837–1860

John Ricus Couperus (1816 – 1902) was a Dutch lawyer, member of the Council of Justice in Padang and member of the High Military Court of the Dutch East Indies. He was also the father of the Dutch writer Louis Couperus and knight in the Order of the Netherlands Lion.

Couperus was a son of Petrus Theodorus Couperus (1787–1823), a landdrost (yeoman) at the Preanger lands and landowner at Java, and Catharina Rica Cranssen (1795–1845). After the early death of his father his mother remarried general Carel Jan Riesz (1791–1865), who was komtur in the Military William Order and was active during the Battle of Waterloo and during military campaigns in the Dutch East Indies. When Couperus was three years old he and his brothers Henry (5 years old) and Piet (4 years old) were sent to the Netherlands, accompanied by friends of their parents (October 20, 1819). In the Netherlands Couperus was placed under guardianship of a merchant in Amsterdam, called I.W. Bagman, who placed Couperus at the home of C.G. Merkus, a preacher of the Walloon church in Dordrecht. Later this family moved to Amsterdam. In 1826 Couperus was sent to a boarding school in Noordwijk, later in Maarssen. In May 1829 his stepfather, who with his wife had returned to the Netherlands, was appointed colonel in the Dutch East Indian Army and moved with his wife back to Batavia. Couperus was sent to the vicar Koorders and became a student at the Athenaeum Illustre of Amsterdam in 1832.