The life and work of Franz Eduard Farwerck (1889-1969)
A great find from a fellow Farwerck investigator.
Farwerck had al least two ex-libris bookplates, a Masonic one and one that is often called “alchemical”. In the biography I refer to a Facebook post of the Ritman Library who had the “alchemical” ex-libris in an exhibition in 2015 (1). The post says: “The designer of the present bookplate, who signed with the initials ‘W.F.N.’, is unknown (suggestions are welcome).
Continue readingA grandchild of Carl Wilhelm and Johanna sent me two photos, the first photo of C.W. that I saw! I could use them, so I put up the marriage photo of the two on their respective little bios (see links above). The other photo was a family photo that included Franz Otto, the father of Franz Eduard and Carl Wilhelm. This was a reason to also write a little bio of ‘senior‘.
I finally found proof of Farwerck’s Theosophical membership, so I updated the Theosophy article a bit.
I did some further digging into Farwerck’s house which made me have to update the “Who was mrs. Farwerck?” text a bit as well.
I have a few things to look into. One was a note from the book The Politics Of Divine Wisdom. In that note the author refers to “TT Sept. 1913, 936” and seems to quote Johanna Farwerck-Borrius as the note says:
Continue readingFARWERCK-BORRIUS, 4: ‘woman .. as far as self-sacrifice is
concerned, surely in general, can and will give more than man.’
Here and there I have information about the Pater Familias but not yet a text solely dedicated to him.
The photo above is from 1929. From left to right you can see Carl Wilhelm Farwerck, Otto Hans Farwerck, Franz Otto Heinrich Richard Farwerck, Willem Arnoud Farwerck and Johanna Farwerck-Borrius.
Continue readingHere is an example of Farwerck as Masonic historian. Farwerck published texts in a periodical called Bouwsteenen which was made available by two of his Masonic brothers. Later the subtitle was changed and another editor turned the periodical in a much less Masonic publication. Farwerck contributed but one text to this second version, a reaction to a text written by the new editor himself. Farwerck shows himself a well-read and critical writer.
Continue readingThis is the oldest text of Farwerck that I know. It was published in an internal publication of the Dutch federation of Le Droit Humain in 1922. I only have photos of the text. I tried ‘to OCR’ them online and then threw the text through Google translator. Of course I have made some corrections, but the text won’t be a perfect translation of a century old Dutch text.
Farwerck used quite a few abbreviations. Instead of translating them to English abbreviations I just gave the English terms for most of them. Terms such as “lesser lights” or “Sr. Warden” aren’t that exciting anymore I think.
Another interesting character who somehow crossed the life of Farwerck.
As you can see on the right, Schors owned books previously owned by Farwerck. I know a few such example. Schors’ ex-libris says: “Librairie des Sciences Occultes, W.N. Schors” (‘library of occult sciences’) and his address in Amsterdam.
This is not the only connection between the two, Schors also published a book of Farwerck. That is to say, in 1976, so after Farwerck died, he republished Farwerck’s first book from 1927 with an alternative cover. Schors (re)published more books from the publishers Duwaer and Van Ginkel who published Farwerck’s debut.
Continue readingPerhaps not the most interesting subject, but still a little.
Glassfactory “Leerdam” started as “Jeekel, Mijnssen & Co.” in 1875. “Leerdam” is not only the name of the factory, but also the place where the factory stood.
In 1912 the Theosophist Petrus Marinus Cochius (1874 – 1938) became director. Under Cochius the factory went more into an ‘artsy’ director which was fairly successful. Cochius had worked for the factory since 1895 and he was semi-director since 1903.
Continue readingI’ve said it a few times before, Farwerck’s brother Carl Wilhelm and his wife Johanna had three sons. One of them remains interesting, so I quickly looked at the three to see what would come up.
Continue readingIn 1912 (age 23) Farwerck started a carpet factory. Strangely enough, in 1911 the family Farwerck seems to have moved to Hilversum so that Farwerck senior could start a carpet factory! Can both things be correct?
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