Tony Lovink | |
Office: | High Commissioner of the Dutch East Indies |
Term: | 2 June 1949 – 27 December 1949 |
Primeminister: | Willem Drees |
Predecessor: | Louis Beel |
Birth Date: | 12 July 1902 |
Birth Place: | The Hague, Netherlands |
Death Place: | Ottawa, Canada |
Spouse: | Clara Roeline Nagel |
Alma Mater: | Heidelberg University |
Profession: | Diplomat, aeronautic |
Antonius Hermanus Johannes Lovink (12 July 1902 – 27 March 1995) was a Dutch diplomat who served as the last High Commissioner of the Crown in the Dutch East Indies from May 1949 until 27 December 1949, the year the Dutch East Indies declared independence from the Netherlands, and renamed itself Indonesia.[1] He was the son of former Member of Parliament Hermanus Johannes Lovink, who was also mayor of Alphen.
In May 1942, he arrived in London from the Japanese-occupied Dutch East Indies. Lovink became secretary-general of the Department of General Warfare of the Dutch government in exile. Lovink, after a diplomatic and civil service career, succeeded Beel as High Representative of the Crown in the Dutch East Indies in May 1949. His time in that position was not always a happy one, and he did not stay in Indonesia after the transfer of sovereignty in December 1949, as initially intended. He later served as Dutch Ambassador to Canada where he was also dean of the Corps Diplomatique, and Australia, and then back again to Canada in 1960. He continued to live in Ottawa after he resigned in 1967, until his death in 1995.[2]