Sir John Abraham Jacob de Villiers, former Deputy Keeper of the Printed Books Department at the British Museum and a famous cartographist, died here yesterday at the age of 67.
Sir John was born in London on September 23rd., 1863, his father being Jacob Hendrik Daniel de Villiers, of Cape Colony, South Africa. He obtained an appointment in the British Museum at the age of 24 and remained there until he retired seven years ago at the age of 60.
Sir John assisted at the Foreign Office as an expert in Dutch in preparing evidence for the boundary arbitration of Venezuela in 1896-99, and acted similarly in Dutch and Portuguese in the boundary arbitration with Brazil in 1901-4. He was engaged in special research work for the Foreign Office in Lisbon, Berlin, The Hague, and other places, and assisted in compiling the handbooks which were used at the Peace Conference in 1919. He was also the cartographical expert in the Labrador boundary arbitration of 1926, by the award of which the claim of Newfoundland to 110,000 square miles was allowed.
Sir John wrote a number of books, among them “The Dutch in South Africa”, “Holland and Some Jews”, “Objects of Jewish Interest in the British Museum”, “Famous Maps in the British Museum” and various articles in the Encyclopaedia Brittanica.
Only a week or two ago, Sir John published his autobiography “My Memories” in which he described the London ghetto in the days of his childhood. Among other things he recalled that Israel Zangwill had been his teacher in Latin for his entrance examination to the British Museum.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
