Seminar: The Birtley Belgians (Belgians in the ammunition factory of Birtley, County Durham, during World War I) - Dirk Musschoot

Gateways Event

Thursday 30 November 2017, 18:00 - 19:30

First World War Seminar Series 2017-18 - Seminar 4 (Kent)

Belgian workers in the bond store of the National Projectile Factory at Birtley-Elisabethville, Co. Durham, 1918. © IWM (Q 27737)

In Flanders Fields Museum and the School of History/Gateways to the First World War, University of Kent present a fourth series of eight seminars on Thursday evenings, free and open to all.

The Shell Crisis of 1915 forced the British to build new ammunition factories as soon as possible. One of those so called National Projectile Factories (NPF) was erected in Birtley in (then) County Durham. Because there were not enough British men to man all those factories, Belgian refugees and disabled Belgian soldiers came in sight. As kind of an experiment the ammunition factory of Birtley became fully manned with Belgians - some 4000. With their wives and children they were 6000. The Belgians lived in Elisabethville, a village erected especially for them next to the factory.

After the War the Belgians disappeared as quickly as they came but their legacy still lives on.

Darwin Lecture Theatre 1, University of Kent, Canterbury, CT2 7NX,