Where do we go from here? One day symposium on Belgian refugees KU Leuven – Brussels Campus. 13 September 2018

Conference programme

8.45 – 9.00	Registration
9.00 – 9.05	Welcome
9.05 – 9.25	Opening paper ·         Christophe Declercq, Janet Bradshaw
9.25 – 10.20	Community engagement and legacy ·         Anne Logan and Alison MacKenzie - Further Discoveries of the Belgian Community in Tunbridge Wells, Kent ·         Robert Lee - Forgotten Refugees of the First World War: Birkenhead’s Belgian community and their legacy
10.20 – 10.40	coffee break – posters are available
10.40 – 11.30	Local responses ·         Ciaran Stoker - Belgian Refugees in Devon during the First World War (provisional title) ·         Jolien De Vuyst - “Most of the time he was in England, he seemed to have a very, very good time”. A family history of two Belgian refugees in Birmingham (1914-1919)
11.30 – 12.45	Transnational and cross-cultural stories ·         Astrid de Beer - "Gasten en verse vis…"  Belgian refugees in Tilburg, 1914-1918 ·         Julian Walker - Belgian refugees in British wartime culture ·         Jan Dewilde - Composers in exile: Music for the king, the people, and the fatherland
12.45 – 1.30	Lunch break – poster sessions
1.30 – 2.50	Panel: Belgian refugees in the Celtic ‘fringe’ of Scotland and Wales ·         Jacqueline Jenkinson - The effects of War trauma on Belgian refugees in Scotland ·         Kieran Taylor - The Catholic Church and Scotland’s Belgian Refugees ·         Lorna Hughes - Uncovering Belgian refugees in Wales (provisional title)
2.50 – 3.20	Small narratives, large impact: mental health and trauma ·         Rob Ellis, Rebecca Gill - Belgian refugees in British asylums: the case of Colney Hatch
3.20 – 3.30	coffee break – posters are available
3.30 – 4.50	Social history without borders? ·         Gilles De Beuckelaer - Profiles of Belgian refugees in Tilburg during WWI ·         Toni Vitti - Croeso cynnes Cymreig – A warm Welsh welcome ·         Helen Baker - Belgians in the Laboratory of Exile
4.50 – 5.20	Project presentation Tracing the Belgian Refugees ·         Alison Fell, Philippa Read, Christophe Declercq
5.20 – 6.30	Drinks and further networking

The event is kindly supported by the Faculty of Arts & Humanities, KU Leuven, Brussels Campus, as well as CERES, the Centre for Reception Studies (KUL).

Peter Cahalan has kindly accepted to act as honorary chairman of the event. The symposium expresses its sincere gratitude to Pat Heron and Marleen Van Ouytsel, who sadly did not live to enjoy the fruits of their efforts in relation to Belgian refugees research and commemorations. 

The conference fee is 20 euros, to be paid upon arrival. You need to register through https://www.eventbrite.com/e/where-do-we-go-from-here-one-day-symposium-on-belgian-refugees-tickets-49336808723. 

Preceding Cavell: refugee becomes secret agent

Jozef Baekelmans was born in 1881, he was the son of the architect François Baeckelmans and cousing to Louis Baeckelmans, also an architect. Jozef was a pupil of Onze-Lieve-Vrouw Antwerpen, the Jesuit school along one of the central boulevards.

A promising young architect himself, he fled to Britain end of 1914. There he came into contact with a group of patriotic Belgians who sought to exchange information between occupied Belgium and Belgian authorities in exile.

He travelled to Belgium on two occasions, but during his last visit his cover was blown - by a friend - to the German occupying forces. Together with another man from Antwerp, Alexander Franck, who had joined Jozef in the resistance movement, Jozef Baeckelmans was tried and executed in Schaerbeek, Brussels, on 23 September 1915. They were the first ones to be shot at the Tir National.

Nearly three weeks later Edith Cavell was tried and shot in a very similar fashion and at the same site.

More information about former pupils of the Antwerp Jesuit school can be found via hetarchief.be.

Two Belgians buried at Sale, Cheshire

The story below and accompanying pictures came to us via the kind attention of Michael Riley, parish archivist at St Paul's Parish Church, Sale, Cheshire M33 7YA.

Sale Old Hall, now demolished, was a hospital for Belgian casualties. Belgian refugees were also treated there.

 Sale Old Hall

Two Belgian men died and were buried in the parish at Sale, Brooklands Cemetery.

A memorial was erected by members of the Sale Belgian Refugee Committee.

Carl Rylent (1865 - 1915) was originally from Antwerp and was locally known as Charles.

Theophile Van Hende (1882 - 1916) was from Antwerp as well.

Although the OCR is at times rather robust, no reference to either man was retrieved via the online database of Belgian wartime newspapers at hetarchief.be (no Rylent, no Theophile in Cheshire for the period Sep-Oct-Nov 1916). Also, today's yellow pages in Belgium do not hold any single Rylent either.

The above pictures may be of interest to descendants or at least descendants of family members of either.


(Unrelated but intriguing. The 1878 Cheshire Post Office Directory mentions the following: "The history of Cheshire in the Iberian, Celtic and Belgian periods is almost a blank.")