Jan Kops: agronomist, botanist, pastor, and politician: born 6 March 1765 in Amsterdam and died 9 January 1849 in Utrecht, Netherlands. His parents, Jacobus Kops, a yarn merchant, and Hillegond Schotvanger, belonged to the conservative Old Frisian Mennonite congregation, but Jan Kops joined the progressive Lamist congregation. Kops married Catharina Daams (1768-1805) in January 1788, the marriage producing 6 sons and 5 daughters. After the death of Catharina in 1805, Kops was married in 1807 to Helena Biljouw (1774-1855). From this marriage came 5 sons and 1 daughter, 3 of the 5 sons dying young.
He became deeply interested in politics, and he was an ardent Patriot, and in 1795, when the Dutch Mennonites obtained equal political rights with the members of the Reformed Church, Kops became a member of the city government at Leiden. In 1800 he was appointed director of agriculture in the Netherlands, whereupon he resigned from his ministry and moved to The Hague. In 1815 he became professor of botany and agricultural economics at the University of Utrecht. In 1816-1843 he preached in the Utrecht Mennonite congregation. He published a number of books and papers on agricultural economy, but no theological books, except two sermons. One of his outstanding publications in the field of botany (in collaboration with J. C. Sepp, was Flora Batava (first vol. at Amsterdam, 1800). In 1830 he became a trustee of Algemene Doopsgezinde Sociëteit (Dutch General Mennonite Conference) and a curator of its seminary.
Albertus Kops, who was one of their children, was born in 1814 in Amsterdam and died in 1874 in Utrecht. He married Grietje Cleyndert of Zaandam. Their son Jan Kops (b. 1846 at Utrecht, d. 1872 at Tjalleberd) studied theology at the Amsterdam Mennonite Seminary and became pastor of the Tjalleberd congregation in September 1872. He served only a few months before an untimely death. His daughter Geertruida Kops (1853-1941) was married to W. I. Leendertz.
Baert, J. Jan Kops, pionier van Hollands Landbouw. The Hague, 1943.
Doopsgezinde Bijdragen (1875): 55.
Doopsgezind Jaarboekje (1850): 37.
Naamlijst der tegenwoordig in dienst zijnde predikanten der Mennoniten in de vereenigde Nederlanden. Amsterdam, 1829: 35 f.
Nederland's Patriciaat XL (1954): 209.
Poole, L. G. te. Bijdragen tot de kermis... van de Dg. te Leiden. Leiden, 1905: passim.
van der Poel, J. M. G. Heren en Boeren. Wageningen, 1949: chapters III-VIII.
Visscher, H. and L. A. van Langeraad. Biographisch Woordenboek von Protestantsche Godgeleerden in Nederland, A-L v. I Utrecht, 1903- : V, 232-36.
Wikipedia. "Jan Kops." 17 March 2014. Web. 7 March 2015. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_Kops.
An autobiographical manuscript by Kops, "Levensbericht," is found in the Utrecht University Library.
|Author(s)||Nanne van der Zijpp|
 Cite This Article
Zijpp, Nanne van der. "Kops, Jan (1765-1849)." Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. 1956. Web. 24 Apr 2017. http://gameo.org/index.php?title=Kops,_Jan_(1765-1849)&oldid=131400.
Zijpp, Nanne van der. (1956). Kops, Jan (1765-1849). Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. Retrieved 24 April 2017, from http://gameo.org/index.php?title=Kops,_Jan_(1765-1849)&oldid=131400.
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