Dr Johannes Theodorus van der Kemp (17 May 1747 in Rotterdam – 15 December 1811 in Cape Town) was a military officer, doctor, and philosopher who became a missionary in South Africa.

[2] Soon after college van der Kemp joined the Dragoon Guards rank of Captain of Horse and a Lieutenant of the Dragoon Guards Ignoring his religious principles, he fathered an illegitimate child, Johanna ("Antje"), an affair to which he described as being “ the slave of vice and ungodliness”, and where brought up his child himself.

Whilst there in 1799 he published the first work in book-form in South Africa, which was an 8-page translation, into Dutch, of the London Missionary Society's letter that he brought out to the inhabitants of the Cape.

In 1803 he established a mission settlement for vagrant Hottentots at Bethelsdorp where local farmers accused him of harboring lawless elements.

[8] Sarah Millin, one of the most popular English-language novelists in South Africa during her lifetime wrote The Burning Man about the life of van der Kemp.

The life of Johannes van der Kemp during his mission in Bethelsdorp is included in the novel Praying Mantis by André Brink.