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Belgian War Memorial At City Rd Cemetery


Calvin72

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I visited this memorial with a Belgian friend recently. It is alongside a derelict chapel near the centre of the cemetery. As usual with these things more questions were raised than answers found whilst there!

It is said that 3,000 Belgians came to Sheffield either as refugees or convalescing soldiers during and after WW1. I would have thought that was enough to establish a small Belgian community here in the last hundred years..? Surely there are descendants of these men and women around today?

The memorial is modern, so when was it erected and by whom?

And why does it give the dates of WW1 as 1914-1919?

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I believe it was unveiled on 21 July 1921

The end of the war is sometimes indicated as 1919 rather than 1918, since a peace treaty (the Treaty of Versailles) was not signed until 28 June 1919. An armistice (as signed on 11 November 1918) is an agreed pause in fighting; it does not itself formally end a war.

I have a section about the Belgian refugees in "Sheffield in the Great War" (below) which will be published in August 2014.

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Thanks Peter!

Unless the memorial has been much cleaned and upholstered over the years then it looks considerably newer than 1921. I would thought it would have been erected whilst the people concerned were still here and expected to find it in poorer shape, but the lettering is very clear and the style modern.

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Sorry, I hurried too much so didn’t answer properly.

Several reports indicate that the memorial was refurbished in 2004 by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.

As for numbers, the inscription indicates that it is “in memory of the soldiers of the Belgian army and of the refugees who died in Sheffield during the Great War 1914-1919”. Military deaths in the city included Belgian soldiers who were being treated in Sheffield war hospitals, so the memorial is probably for them as well as for Belgian civilians dying in the city.

Some refugees left during the course of the war, to France, to neutral Holland to other parts of UK. Many left in special trains in January 1919. An excerpt from the book is:

“More than 1,400 left in two trains on 28 January 1919 and others returned later. Members of the Belgian War Refugees’ Committee and hosts from the city were at the station to say goodbye, and the Sheffield Daily Independent of 29 January reported that ‘at least twenty Belgians took with them Sheffield girls as wives, whilst conversely a number of Belgian girls remain behind having married Sheffield men’.

The Yorkshire Telegraph and Star in the evening of 28 January reported conversations with several of the departing men and women. For example:

An interesting personality amongst the throng was Mrs Van Roosbroeck, of Antwerp, whose husband has been with the Belgian army all through the fighting. She and her bonny boy are returning after four years’ absence. During the four years, Mrs Van Roosbroeck has been ‘doing her bit’ for the cause by working on munitions at Cammell’s. With all the vivaciousness of her race she said she wished to pay a tribute to the girls and women who had worked in the factories. ‘They are a splendid lot’, she said, ‘and I have had a very happy time amongst them. I shall always remember my happy time in Sheffield. In fact, I won’t be allowed to forget it, because my boy speaks English perfectly. Good luck to the girls of Sheffield.’”

Peter

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Thanks very much Peter - a friend of mine will be very interested in what you have written! The monument does indeed refer to both refugees and injured soldiers and it is noticeable that at least a quarter of the names are female.

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I visited this memorial with a Belgian friend recently. It is alongside a derelict chapel near the centre of the cemetery. As usual with these things more questions were raised than answers found whilst there!

It is said that 3,000 Belgians came to Sheffield either as refugees or convalescing soldiers during and after WW1. I would have thought that was enough to establish a small Belgian community here in the last hundred years..? Surely there are descendants of these men and women around today?

The memorial is modern, so when was it erected and by whom?

And why does it give the dates of WW1 as 1914-1919?

Hello , sorry i cant give you dates on the memorial,but i can tell you that my aunt was a nurse during that time and met a Belgium soldier who suffered schrapnell wounds ,they later married and had 2 daughters in Sheffield ,after the war ended not sure what year they moved to his farm in Belgium not too far from Ypres and had a further 8 children.Over the last few years my family has been in constant touch with our extended family which now numbers between 80 and 90 Belgium relatives.Just another true love story from ww1.

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Hello , sorry i cant give you dates on the memorial,but i can tell you that my aunt was a nurse during that time and met a Belgium soldier who suffered schrapnell wounds ,they later married and had 2 daughters in Sheffield ,after the war ended not sure what year they moved to his farm in Belgium not too far from Ypres and had a further 8 children.Over the last few years my family has been in constant touch with our extended family which now numbers between 80 and 90 Belgium relatives.Just another true love story from ww1.

Thats the way to do it!

Thanks Mr P - a chat with my friend about this thread led to him thinking that the Sheffield lasses who went with their new husbands to Belgium would have changed their names, and their descendants may only be vaguely aware of their Sheffield ancestory. Likewise the Belgian ladies who married Sheffield lads would have changed their names and the Belgian names are lost to us.

Are there any records of where the refugees lived?

In which sort of areas?

And were they billeted with local families for the duration of their stay?

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Even though only a tiny piece of land around NIeuport remained in Belgian hands the Belgians continued the struggle until the Armistice. With the vast majority of the small country in German hands I have often puzzled how they managed to keep the Belgian Army supplied with Belgians? Does anyone know?

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Responding to Calvin72’s “Are there any records of where the refugees lived?”, here are some more words from “Sheffield in the Great War” (above):


“The District War Refugees Committee (it also covered neighbouring areas, with a Sheffield sub-committee) immediately [from mid-September 1914] developed Shirle Hill [in Nether Edge] as a ‘receiving base’. Other primary centres were provided by the Sheffield and the Ecclesall Boards of Guardians, and across the next few weeks individuals, groups and churches of all denominations made available (usually without charge) around a hundred Sheffield properties to house Belgian families. For example, Ecclesall Church maintained or part-maintained nine refugee families; Upper Chapel accommodated others in two separate houses; Ranmoor Church rented and furnished a large property in Park Crescent; the Sheffield Jewish Refugees Aid Society provided three houses in Ecclesall Road; the Stocksbridge Belgian Sub-Committee (part of the Stocksbridge Relief Committee) made available a house in Albany Road; and the University opened a hostel in Western Bank (see Chapter Eleven). In each case, groups were formed to provide clothes, furniture, utensils and coal for heating, to collect subscriptions from well-wishers, and to organize concerts and other fund-raising activities. The City Council supplied free electricity to the Shirle Hill base for a period, and many tradesmen decorated or undertook necessary modifications to houses without charge.”

In later months many of the refugees moved on and settled in their own properties. A few lodged in the “Munition Huts”, which provided accommodation for munition workers and their families.

Peter

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Wasn't Leopold Street in town named after King Leopold II of Belgium who came here when Belgium was over run by the Germans during the 1st World War?

In which case wouldn't we have picked up quite a lot of Belgium refugees and evacuee, with Britain being a safe haven and a place to regroup and to possibly carry on fighting in order to liberate their homeland.

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