Belgian Refugees Wales for Peace Lecture by Christophe Declercq, Feb 2016

The hidden history of Belgian refugees in
Britain, with a noted focus on Wales
c.declercq@ucl.ac.uk
@belgianrefugees
National Library of Wales and
International Politics Department
(Aberystwyth University)
17.02.2016

"The story of the Belgian refugees is fascinating. Most arrived with tales
of terrible destruction […]. This exhibition shines a light on the
hardships many people in the UK and mainland Europe had to endure
to ensure the safeguarding of values like freedom and democracy for
their children and the generations to come."
Nick Bradley, Swansea Council's Cabinet Member for Regeneration, 27
August 2014
3

That was then, this is now
As with any conflict, civilian history gives away under the
pressure of the military and political.
It took a dead three year old boy, who had died on a beach
near a Turkish resort while trying to reach Greece and safer
grounds in Europe, before that very same Europe came to
realise fully for the first time just how horrible the situation in
the Middle East really was.
Stretching from Syria all the way to Afghanistan, hundreds of
thousands of people, millions, are displaced, on the run, or
both.
4

On the run
• Germany invaded Belgium on 4 August, upon which Britain declared
war on Germany.
• Atrocities by German soldiers triggered a mass movement of people.
• While some already early on fled to the Netherlands or France, heading north
or south, others crossed the Channel. Many, however, sought refuge in
Antwerp, the fortified port city.
• When the Germans turned to Antwerp end of September / early October
1914, nearly one million people fled the port city in a matter of day.
• When Antwerp fell on 9/10 October Antwerp, the city was deserted.
Five days later Ostend fell and the front movements stalled for the
next four years.
5

BR workers in Britain (16-05-13) 8
The sacking of Louvain, 25 August 1914

Christophe Declercq (CenTraS@UCL, Imperial College,
@belgianrefugees)
10

17
A few figures (1/3)
• In that late summer and early autumn of 1914, nearly three million
Belgians were on the run (out of little more than 7m).
• More than a million fled to The Netherlands, that stayed neutral.
• 325,000 stayed in France, behind what was to become the frontline.
• Appr. 265,000 Belgians came to Britain (never more than 172,000 at any
time)
• It is estimated that up to another 1.5m were still on the run in Belgium itself.
• Nearly 3m is 60 times the Lampedusa refugee crisis in 2011,
refugees from Tunisia and Libya (but who remembers that one
now?).

A few figures (2/3)
• By Christmas 1914 nearly 100,000 Belgians resided on the British Isles,
about 90% of those in England.
• Between 20 September and 24 October, 35,000 Belgians arrived in Folkestone alone.
In all, close to 65,000 Belgians will have arrived there throughout the war.
• Daily numbers of arrivals at Tilbury varied from 131 to 880 from end of August until
early December 1914.
• In 1915, nearly another 100,000 came to Britain, mostly to work in the
British war industry.
• In all in-between 225,000 and 265,000 Belgians stayed in Britain for some
time during the First World War, with 173,000 the most at one time.
• 75% were from Flanders and/or Dutch-speaking (varieties).
• Roughly 2500 local Belgian refugee committees emerged in Britain.
18

A few figures (3/3)
• Is a long-term convalescing Belgian soldier, looked after by a Belgian
refugee committee and part of the figures of accommodation for that
committee, more of a ‘Belgian refugee’ than the refugee who had come
from the Netherlands, stayed in Britain briefly and moved on to France?
• Nearly 10,000 Belgian children were accommodated in Belgian schools in
Britain (Belgian curriculum).
• In-between 40,000 and 50,000 Belgians were employed, most of them only
after the Shell Crisis of May/June 1915 (little over 5,000 in March 1915).
• Over 10,000 Belgians were members of a Belgian union in Britain.
• Belgians returned mainly in 1919, although some stayed on for some time,
and others returned from their return.
• No one knows how many Belgians really stayed. Estimations vary between
close to 6,000 and 12,000.
24

Report on the Work Undertaken… (1920)

@belgianrefugees)
27

@belgianrefugees)
28

So why has this history been ‘hidden’ for so
long?
The sojourn in Britain of about a quarter of a million Belgians has long
been overlooked. The reasons for this are many.
• A discourse used for much longer than public support allowed,
although it gradually shifted from Belgian refugees in Britain to
Belgian soldiers at the front and Belgians in occupied Belgium.
• Disappeared from view in British press.
29

long?
• In short, by mid-1915, Belgians disappeared from view into the
factories and schools and they were reported on mainly in their own
newspapers.
• From a Belgian perspective: only one of the many stories of a
fragmentend nation at the time of the FWW, and immediately after.
• Most importantly, the Belgians came as imperceptibly as they went.
• By mid-1919 virtually all had returned to Belgium, without leaving a clear
trace.
30

long? – discourse and support
• Belgian refugees were part of the general discourse and political
narrative to keep the British population mobilised.
• John Redmond’s poster ‘Remember Belgium’
• So when the war drags on, not over by Christmas, how do you relate to that
rationale? It peters out.
• In the period August – October 1914, every Briton wanted to have a
Belgian in the house.
• But the war continues well beyond Christmas and British communities kept
sending fathers and sons, husbands and brothers to the front, whereas
Belgian able men were being looked after in Britain. Support wanes.
31

32
Distress relief and charity
• British
• Private: War Refugees Committee (Lady Lugard), Aldwych
• Several departments: one of which oversaw employment
• Government: Local Government Board
• State: Between 2000 and 2500 local Belgian refugee committees (overseen by LGB)
• Belgians themselves
• Comité Officiel Belge / Belgian Official Committee
• Belgian Legation
• Belgian Relief Fund
• …
• Hundreds of other charity initiatives
• Belgian and Serbian relief fund for clothing school children
• The Daily Mail, Everyman...
• …

2nd December 1914: Letter regarding refugee
allocation (Lorna Hughes 2014)
35

Spreading vs. control
• The two most important locations for Belgians in the UK are
London and Folkestone.
• Most Belgians arrived in Folkestone.
• Besides a community of a few thousands of Belgians in the area, Belgian
military authorities and intelligence services were also established here.
• London was renowned for its ‘dispersal centres’: first Alexandra
Palace but then mainly Earls Court.
• The first one turned into a POW camp for Germans.
• The second one became the hub of a local community of thousands of
Belgians.
• This also drove the Belgian communities in West London.
• Chelsea-Fulham-Sh.Bush-H’smith-Chiswick-Ealing-Twickenham-Richmond-
Barnes.
• Lots of Belgian butchers were located West London too (horse meat).

Spreading vs. control
• Other cities:
• Liverpool, Manchester & Salford
• Birmingham, Bromwich, Wolverhampton
• Leicester, Nottingham, Letchworth, Coventry
• Cambridge, Oxford
• Exeter, Bristol
• Glasgow, Edinburgh
• Sheffield, Bradford, Leeds
• Cardiff, Swansea
• Blackpool, Barrow-in-Furness, Blackburn
• Newcastle, Gateshead, Durham
• 100s of towns and villages

British newspapers
• British Library Newspaper Archive (nearly 13m pages, and counting), Welsh
Newspapers Online and the search phrase ‘Belgian refugees’:
BLNA Welsh **
1914 10,461 1,285
1915 9,675 * 990 ***
1916 2,168 261
1917 816 85
1918 873 71
1919 430 127
* (figures drop below 1000 per month in
May, below 500 per month in September)
** (without an exact phrase search Belgian
refugees returns over 14,000 results in the
Welsh Newspapers Online only)
*** (figures drop below 100 per month in
March, below 50 per month in August)
41

N-Gram of ‘Belgian Refugees’ in Welsh newspapers
(Hughes 2014)
42

Fragmented and omitted from memory
• When the ‘British Belgians’ return to their native land, they go back to a fragmented
country.
• Parts of the nation’s infrastructure lay in tatters.
• Belgians had been experiencing the war from many different perspectives:
• Forced labour in Germany
• Occupied Belgium
• Non-occupied Belgium
• Belgian authorities that had been in France mainly, but also in the NL and the UK
• Local populations were not always welcoming to returning refugees
• After the hardship of the war, thousands of Hungarian children are accommodated in Belgium.
• There simply was no shared experience for the entire nation.
• Also, when in a family one male had fought at the front, and others had been refugees:
when the former soldiers does not tell about his experiences of the horrors of war, why
would one listen to civilian histories? ‘My grandfather never spoke about this.’
43

Sampling from the history of the Belgians in
Britain, and from the one in Wales
• The issue of numbers
• Education
• Employment
• Newspapers in exile
• Repatriation / return
44

The issue of numbers
• In 1919, the Ministry of Health oversaw the publication of what, from
a British perspective, is in fact the key document in terms of the
history of the Belgians in Britain during World War One: “Report of
the Work Undertaken by the British Government in the Reception and
Care of the Belgian refugees” (HMSO, 1920). The report, which we
abbreviate as RWU 1920 for ease of use, incorporates the following
estimations:
• Based on this one document and corroborated by various other
primary sources, it can only be assumed that any estimation of the
number of Belgians in Britain is indeed upwards 225,000.
45

Numbers & the British Isles
• On 31 August 1917, the Comité Officiel Belge pour l’Angleterre, the Official
Belgian Committee for the UK which ran alongside the Belgian Legation in
London, published a report that included numbers of Belgians and the area
they resided in at the time of its publication. The breakdown between the
then constituent nations of Britain, a total of 172,298 is as follows:
• England: 155,376 (90.18%)
• Scotland: 10,628 (6.17%)
• Wales: 4,547 (2.64%)
• Ireland: 1,700 (0.99%)
• Channel Islands: 47 (0.02%)
46

Belgians in Wales
• Early on in the conflict, the Davies sisters arranged for a number of
Belgian artists to be brought to Wales. Eventually, nearly a hundred
were accommodated, most of them in and around Aberystwyth.
• Two small local Belgian communities of about 500 Belgians each were
living in Cardiff and Swansea.
• More than a thousand Belgians stayed in Pembrokeshire, an area on
the outskirts of the main island that not only had century-old ties
with Flanders, but also a fishing industry to which the mainly Flemish
settlers could relate (Milford Haven).
47

August-Edmond de Schryver
• Mobilitiy
• Educated at Sint-Barbara College, Ghent
• 16 years old: from Ostend to Folkestone on 14 October 1914, via Dover to London
• First at Mill Hill, Derby – he’ll be visiting his landlady for decades on after the
FWW
• Visits to Blyth Wood, Bromley (Catholic School, his sister)
• Llanaber, Barmouth
• Jesuit College in Barmouth
• Belgian Jesuit College at St Leonards on Sea, Hastings
• And more
• Still a teenager but producing stories for exile newspapers
• Graduates Easter 1916 (!), joins the British army in August 1916

De Jastrzebski (1916): mobility

Putting pieces together – A Welsh ABC (so far!)
Aberdare; Aberystwyth;
Bargoed; Bettws-y-Coed; Bodfean; Bontnewydd & Llanfaglan;
Brynamman; Breconshire; Bridgend Welsh Tabernacle;
Caerwys; Cardiff; Cardigan; Carmarthen; Carnavon; Clogagnog; Colwyn
Bay; Corwen; Criccieth; Crickhowell; Cwmllynfell
[…]
52

Education
• Tens of thousands of Belgian children
• Most of them were accommodated in British schools, often with a Belgian section, a Belgian
teacher or a Belgian teacher or priest passing by regularly.
• Virtually all school logs report successful immersion and assimilation.
• Thousands of Belgian children went to entirely Belgian schools established in Britain
especially for that purpose.
• Whichever the system of education: the children disappeared from view, either
because of Belgian schools, either because their Belgianness waned.
• By the end of the school year 1916-1917,
• 9,000 children were being taught in Belgian primary schools across Britain,
• another 1,200 in secondary schools, making a total of 10,200 Belgian children,
• that is, roughly one in three Belgian children.
• The total number of schools was 70 primary and 12 secondary subsidised schools
and a further 30 schools that did not apply for funding, but followed a Belgian
curriculum nonetheless.
53

Belgian schools in Wales
Belgian primary schools with a Belgium curriculum, recognised and funded by the
Belgian government
• Barmouth, 8 Marine Gardens
• Cardiff, 9 Richmond Crescent
• Newport, Holy Cross School, Emelyn Road
• Towyn, 30 Idris Villa
Belgian primary schools with a Belgium curriculum, recognised by the Belgian
government but not funded
• Cardiff, St. David School, David Street
• Carnavon, St. Helen's Convent
• Milford Haven, 28 Priory Road
55

@belgianrefugees)
59

13.01.14, Vrijzinnig Ontmoetingscentrum, Hasselt

Employment
Yet as the war dragged on the ‘Belgian refugee’ needed more than
reception, accommodation and subsidized support, consequently
across Britain tens of thousands of Belgians were gradually employed in
the war industry.
Sometimes this led to the development of a
true Belgian colony around a particular factory
• Elisabethville near Newcastle
• Pelabon in Twickenham/Richmond
• Kryn&Lahy in Letchworth
• …
61

Belgians in British factories
1. Vickers, Barrow-in-Furness – 5797 employees
2. Jackson, Sir John, Salisbury – 1914 employees
3. Armstrong Whitworth, Glasgow & Newcastle – 1335 employees
4. Lancashire & Yorkshire Railway – 708 employees
5. Coventry Ordnance Works, Coventry & Glasgow – 662 employees
6. War Office, 505 employees
7. Wolseley Tool and Motor Co., Birmingham – 407 employees
8. Austin Motor, Birmingham & Oxford – 397 employees
9. Central Zinc Works, Seaton Crew – 365 employees
10. Locke & Lancaster, Rotherhite and Poplar – 346 employees
62

Belgian factories in the UK
1. Pelabon Works, Twickenham – 1705 employees
2. Kryn & Lahy Metal Works, Letchworth – 1469 employees
3. General Stores and Munitions, 132 Goldhawk Road, SW, London – 950
employees
4. Claes, Devis & co, Broad Street, Eastcliff – 450 employees
5. Forgings & Stampings, Martin Derihon, 3 Piccadilly, London – 291 employees
6. Société Belge de mécanique, 9 Brewery Road, Caledonian Road, London – 230
employees
7. De Bruyn, 20 Eastcheap, E.C. London – 160 employees
8. James Francis Works, 66/68 Wandsworth Road, S.W. London – 150 employees
9. Lenaerts & Dolphens, Willow avenue, Barnes – 140 employees
10. Barnes Mechanical Works, Barnes – 130 employees
63

Belgian Metal Workers
• Willem Eekelers, a representative of the Antwerp branch of the Metal
Workers in Belgium, started a union in the UK: Belgian Metal Workers.
• British unions were still based along professional categories, not
along industry sectors, which was what the Belgian unions did.
• Eekelers also differentiated manual labour and administrative workers
• The CBM, Centrale van Belgische Metaalbewerkers, became a buffer
too, preventing Belgian (military authorities) looking at the labourers
as reservist forces for the army.
• Organised its own newspaper.
65

Putting the Belgians to use
• “The Belgians who will be employed at the Birtley National
Projectile Factory may convently be grouped under three
heads.
• 1. The soldiers who are being withdrawn from the Belgian Army.
• 2. The reformed soldiers who are being instructed by the Belgian
Military Authorities in this country to work at Birtley.
• 3. Belgian civilians who are being engaged in this country by the
Birtley Management to work at Birtley.”
66

67
Elisabethville,
Birtley
(Gateshead)

BR workers in Britain (16-05-13) 68

Belgian newspapers in exile
• The Belgians also relied on an
intricate spread of exile
newspapers and journals.
70

Return / repatriation
• The Repatriation Fund was established not long after the War Refugees
Committee emerged.
• Clearly, the war was going to be over soon.
• Committees involved with repatriation initially, turned their focus of
attention elsewhere.
• Only by the end of 1917 first and mid-1918 do plans re-emerge.
• In the meantime, Belgian architects have been trained in the garden city
philosophy and the British government decided that priority should be with
the return of soldiers.
• Most Belgians accepted a return paid for by the British government, this
happened mainly between January and March 1919.
75

History repeats itself
• When the Germans invaded Belgium again in 1940, thousands of Belgians
came to Britain once again, including Wales.
• The Belgian government in exile subsequently established a military camp
in Tenby, for instance, a seaside town where Belgians had lived during the
First World War as well.
• Fishermen went to Milford Haven again.
• Twists in history: August-Edmond de Schrijver, who was taught at the Jesuit
school of Barmouth, became a prominent Minister in the Belgian
government in exile in London during the Second World War and ‘signed
off’ the Congo in 1960, arguably the last time Belgians had become
refugees.
• And that’s just the Belgians.
82

And yet
• Michael Morpurgo is the grandson of Emile Cammaerts, the Belgian
who had come to London prior to the First World War, but who was
instrumental in rallying continued support for Belgium in Britain.
• Bloomsbury set:
• Aldous Huxley
• Lalla Vandervelde
• E.M. Forster
• Virginia Woolf
83

So, where are they?
• Well, you only need to ‘scratch the surface’ and there they are
• However, misunderstandings and myths abound. This project aims to
provide a visual undertaking, through which people
• Can form an idea of the entire history
• Can contribute their own story, should this be relevant or contain relevan
information
• Using digitised sources from archives and institutions in both
Belgium, esp. Flanders, and Britain
• Hoping to instigate family history journeys between Flanders and
Britain

If you have any family story to tell, do you have
any pictures that can help shed a more varied
light on this history, please be in touch:
c.declercq@ucl.ac.uk
More information on
http://www.belgianrefugees14-18.be/

Wales for Peace alongside Amsab-ISG (Ghent)
• Striking iconographic material relevant to support a visual history of the
Belgians in Britain during the First World War
• Witness reports / testimonials
• Support in cascading calls for material / testimonials
• Material that helps
• Myth busting
• Support previously unsupported elements
• Increased mutual exchanges
• People who are interested in family history
• People who are looking for the relatives of the host family
• People who are looking for relatives of the guest family

www.belgianrefugees14-18.be/index.php/activiteiten/pers/37-
terug-naar-milford-haven

Belgian Refugees Wales for Peace Lecture by Christophe Declercq, Feb 2016

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