Belgian Refugees

During the First World War around 225,000 Belgians came to Britain to flee the conflict that had taken over their country. It remains the largest influx of refugees in British history. The British Government had taken the decision to offer hospitality to the refugees, and across the country local Belgian refugees committees were formed.

The Tunbridge Wells Belgian Refugees Committee was chaired by the Mayor Cllr. Charles Whitbourn Emson, and among the committee members were social reformer and campaigner for women’s suffrage Amelia Scott and her sister Louisa, the Parish Priest of St. Augustine’s Catholic Church Canon James Keatinge, and the Town Clerk William Charles Cripps.

An appeal by the Refugees Committee in the local newspapers for accommodations, funds and gifts was responded to generously; £6,476 was raised by the people of Tunbridge Wells and district between 1914 and 1918, meaning that the committee was able to support the refugees until December 1915 without asking for assistance from the Central War Refugees Committee.

The Catholic sections of the cemetery contain the final resting places of seven of these Belgian refugees, although only four of them have headstones.

An impressive headstone near to the path is that of Rosalie Gebruers-De-Pauw, wife of telephone fitter Sebastien Gebruers, who died in the Workhouse Infirmary at Pembury on 26th February 1916.

A few yards away are the graves of Madame Hélène Denyn and her twelve year old daughter Emma, the first wife and youngest daughter of Josef Denyn, a world famous ‘carillonneur’ (player of percussion instrument using bells) of Mechelen Cathedral. Emma Carolina Maria Denyn died on 28th September 1916, two days after her 12th birthday, at 3 Eastcliff Road – the family’s temporary home, provided by the Refugees Committee. Her mother followed just under a year later on 23rd September 1917. Their graves are one in front of the other, so that standing in front of Madame Denyn’s cross, her daughter is just behind her.

Next to Emma Denyn is two year old Joseph Van Nuland who died on 1st September 1916 at 154b Upper Grosvenor Road. His parents were stockbroker Paul Francois Van Nuland and his wife Marie Hanocq, from Chaussée de Turnhout, Antwerp. On 4th July 1917 another son was born to M. and Mme. Van Nuland. They also named him Joseph.

In an unmarked plot nearby lies 66 year old Wilhelmina Florentina Vanhercke, the unmarried daughter of cabinet-maker Jean Vanhercke, who died on 1st May 1916 of pneumonia. She lived with her widowed sister Maria Tanghe, Maria’s daughter Germaine and her husband and their baby daughter Gladys.

There are two more unmarked graves; seven month old Helene Becker, youngest daughter of basket-maker Victor Becker, who died of measles complications on 23rd March 1915 at the General Hospital on Grosvenor Road, and Theodore Van Beneden, a labourer employed at the Church Army Home on Upper Grosvenor Road, who died of pneumonia on 1st February 1917 at 63 Grosvenor Park.

The deaths of Hippolyte and Isabella Meeus are interesting. Hippolyte Meeus was the mayor of Wyneghem who had made his home at 4 Nevill Park after fleeing Belgium. Isabella died in June 1915 and Hippolyte in October 1915. They wished to be buried in Belgium. Their bodies were embalmed, sealed in lead lined coffins and placed in the cemetery mortuary for the duration of the war. In 1918 they were transported back to Belgium and buried there.

Information supplied by Alison Sandford MacKenzie
belgiansrtw@gmail.com