Jonge Thomas
Dutch ship wrecked in Paardenbaai, South Africa
Jonge Thomas, also written as De Jonge Thomas was an 18th-century East Indiaman of the Dutch East India Company.
Jonge Thomas was a merchant ship who sailed several times to the Dutch East Indies and China. During her fourth voyage she wrecked at Table Bay. Wolraad Woltemade and his horse successfully entered the water seven times and rescued fourteen people. He and his horse died during the eighth attempt. The ship had 296-360 crew members, hundred of whom would have drowned.
A range of depictions were made of the sinking of the ship and the rescue operation; multiple of them are in the Yale Center for British Art collection and collection of the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam.
Ship details
Jonge Thomas was built in 1764 in Amsterdam for the Chamber of Amsterdam. She was made of wood and was 150 feet long. She had a loading capacity of 1150 tons and a capacity for up to 360 crew members.
“Jonge Thomas” enters the record as dutch ship wrecked in Paardenbaai, South Africa. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Jonge, Thomas and Dutch can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“Jonge Thomas” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Jonge, Thomas and Dutch provides the most credible route into that argument.
Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Dec 15, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q124352275. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1764 and 1150.
The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.
- Subject orientation
- Search vocabulary
- Locating named sources
The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Jonge Thomas”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Jonge Thomas primary sources, Jonge Thomas archive and Jonge research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Jonge Thomas”?
- Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
- What terminology or title could unlock a more precise catalogue search?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Jonge Thomas” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.