Story of WW1 Belgian refugee buried in a Darlington cemetery

“A la memoire de Jules Libert, mécanicien à la marine de l’etat Belge,” begins the legend, saying that he was the “épous regrette” – the much missed husband – of Marguerite Remaut.

It says that he was born in Ostend in Belgium on October 23, 1881, and that he died – “décédé” – in Darlington on April 9, 1918.

Jules Leonard Joseph Jean Libert, of Ostend, buried in Darlington West Cemetery Jules, a mechanic in the Belgian state navy, was one of 250,000 Belgian refugees who were driven out of their homes by German atrocities in the earliest days of the First World War – Memories 688 told how in Aarschot in August 1914, the male civilians were lined up in threes, two of whom were shot in the back of the head and the third was ordered to dig their graves.

READ MORE: THE UNBEARABLE SUFFERING OF CLEMENTINE, A DURHAM REFUGEE FROM BELGIUM

The refugees were distributed around the country, and usually wealthy people with large homes offered them shelter, although in Witton Park near Bishop Auckland, where the ironworks was recently closed, up to 200 of them were crowded into uninhabited terraced houses.

As Belgium is a Catholic country, many of those who accepted refugees were also Catholics.

William and Hester Cherrington of 26 Shildon Street. Standing at the back is their eldest son William who fought on the Somme and emigrated to Australia. The Cherringtons took in the Libert family of Belgian refugeesFor some unknown reason, William and Hester Cherrington decided to offer sanctuary to a family. William and Hester were neither Catholic nor were they wealthy – they lived in a typical Darlington terraced house, two up, two down, in Shildon Street, opposite the North Road Shops.

Shildon Street, with the home the Cherringtons shared with the Libert refugees on the right. Picture: Google StreetView“I have absolutely no idea how they all fitted in,” says William and Hester’s grand-daughter, Kath Sewell, of Crook. “Their eldest son was away at the war on the Somme, but still at home was my father, Arthur, and their three daughters.”

Jules and Marguerite had at least one daughter, Denise, with them so somehow nine people were accommodated in the two bedrooms.

William Cherrington with the Austin 7 belonging to his son, Arthur, during the Second World War when the vehicle was laid up because of petrol rationing in an allotment shed off Shildon Street - that's the famous Darlington Forge on Albert Hill behind himSadly, during his time in Shildon Street, Jules passed away. He was 37.

“I remember Denise Libert, his daughter, saying: ‘My daddy will always stay in Darlington’,” says Kath, 90. “She visited my grandparents when I was a child. I’ll never forget the look on my mother’s face when Denise came in through the back door and threw her arms around my father and hugged and kissed him – my mother didn’t know this lady, didn’t know the story of the refugees, but Denise had known when they were children living together in Shildon Street.”

Jules Leonard Joseph Jean Libert, of Ostend, buried in Darlington West CemeteryDenise continued to visit her father’s white headstone in West Cemetery until the mid-1970s when she must have died and all contact was lost.

Until 2009, when Kath’s son, John, went to Perth, Australia, for a friend’s wedding. While out there, he took the opportunity to look for the grave of William and Hester’s eldest son, also called William. When the Belgians came to Shildon Street, he had been serving on the Somme as an ambulance driver – a role that had been given to him because of the motor mechanics skills he had learned while working at Robert Stephenson & Hawthorns (also known as “Stivvies”) in Darlington.

After the war, William had emigrated to Australia.

“John found my uncle’s grave and brought home a list of Cherrington telephone numbers,” says Kath. “I rang the number for WK Cherrington as I knew my grandmother’s maiden name was Kendall, and it was my cousin Bill.

“He was delighted as a few years earlier he had come over to Darlington looking for me, and he had been invited into the Shildon Street house by the then owners when he knocked on the door.

“He had employed a genealogist who had found four Kathleen Cherringtons with the same name as me, and 17 Alan Cherringtons, which was my brother’s name. But my brother Alan had died of pneumonia, so they drew a blank when they contacted all of the Alan Cherringtons and I wasn’t one of the Kathleen Cherringtons that they rang.”

Members of the Lilberyt family and the HMS Vindictive memorial in OstendWith the family reunited, the conversation eventually got round to the story of the Belgian refugees and the Australian relatives produced a small picture that the Libert family must have posted to brother William down under. It showed four of them standing in front of a British warship, HMS Vindictive, although the meaning of the picture had become forgotten over the decades.

But a fortnight after Jules had died in Darlington, HMS Vindictive was involved in a daring and deadly mission. It was one of three ships chosen to land volunteers on the walls of Zeebrugge harbour to take out the German gun emplacements so that three more concrete-filled ships could be scuttled at the harbour-mouth.

The goal of this mission was to block Zeebrugge harbour as German U-boats were using the Dutch and Belgian canal system behind it as a base from which to sneak out and attack British shipping. Blocking the harbour meant stopping the U-boats.

HMS Vindictive was joined on an almost kamikaze run through waves of gunfire to the harbour walls by HMS Iris II, which was commanded by Lt-Cmdr George Bradford. He was the brother of Brigadier-General Roland Bradford, the Darlington Grammar School old boy, who had won a Victoria Cross for his outstanding bravery on the Western Front.

HMS Vindictive and HMS Iris II approach the Zeebrugge harbour walls on April 23, 1918, as painted by Charles John De LacyAt Zeebrugge harbour on April 23, 1918, it was the turn of George Bradford to show the same extraordinary bravery by leaping into the gunfire to secure Iris II to the wall.

His Victoria Cross citation read: “Lt-Cmdr Bradford's action was one of absolute self-sacrifice; without a moment's hesitation he went to certain death, recognising that in such action lay the only possible chance of securing Iris II and enabling her storming parties to land.”

Lt-Cmdr GN Bradford VCRoland and George were the only brothers in the First World War to win the Victoria Cross. They’d been born in Witton Park and grown up in Milbank Road in the west end of Darlington.

George’s self-sacrifice was not in vain as his mission successfully blocked Zeebrugge harbour.

But it didn’t stop the U-boats. They wended their way along the canals to the other harbour that gave them access to the North Sea so they could cause havoc among the shipping.

That harbour was Ostend, the home town of the Liberts.

On May 10, 1918, the British launched a dangerous raid to block Ostend harbour.

HMS Vindictive had been so badly damaged in the raid on Zeebrugge that, although it had made it home, it was unrepairable.

So it was filled with concrete, sailed splutteringly across the Channel, and sunk in the mouth of Ostend harbour.

As it went down, its 55 crewmen jumped off into rescue boats but, of course, they had all the enemy’s guns trained on them. Eighteen were killed.

The mission was a success: Ostend harbour was blocked. The U-boats were at bay.

But only for a few weeks until the Germans managed to blast a clear way through Zeebrugge.

The recently-renovated HMS Vindictive memorial on Ostend harbourIn peacetime, the Belgian refugees returned home and the Belgian government wanted to reopen Ostend harbour. On August 16, 1920, the remains of the Vindictive were raised and broken up with the bow section preserved on the seafront as a “herdenkingsmonument” – a memorial.

The Liberts, with their connections to Darlington, must have been among the first to inspect the memorial made out of the British warship and have photographs taken in front of it which they sent onto the family who had given them sanctuary.

Just as Jules Libert’s headstone still stands in West Cemetery as a memorial to him and those troubled times so HMS Vindictive, recently repainted, still stands on Ostend harbour as a memorial to the bravery of those who helped us through those troubled times.

HMS Vindictive's bow section is now a memorial on Ostend harbourREAD MORE: THE BELGIAN REFUGEES WHO SOUGHT SANCTUARY IN SOUTH DURHAM

Fr Krajicek's broken memorial has now been restored in EscombON Thursday, October 24, the newly-restored headstone on the grave of Father John Francis Krajicek will be unveiled and rededicated in High Escomb Cemetery.

Fr Krajicek, of Czech descent, trained to be a Catholic priest at Ushaw College in County Durham, and was in charge of the parish of St Chad’s in Witton Park when the First World War broke out and the Belgian refugees came across.

He saw the potential of the empty ironworkers’ houses in Witton Park and persuaded the Government to send several hundred refugees to live in them. He then acted as a cheerleader for all the Belgians in south Durham, many of whom had fled with only the clothes they stood up in. He led community fundraising events to help them.

Fr Krajicek died on December 10, 1918 – a month after Armistice Day – of pneumonia, which was linked to the post-war Spanish Flu pandemic. He was 42.

He was buried in High Escomb cemetery which in 1971 was abandoned to nature with all its headstone bulldozed flat.

Now volunteers are clearing 50 years of overgrowth and Fr Krajicek’s headstone is one of the first to be reinstated.

When Memories 693 told his story, many readers were moved to donate to the stone’s restoration.

It will be unveiled at 12.30pm on October 24 and everyone is welcome to attend.

READ MORE: RESTORING THE HEADSTONE OF FATHER KRAJICEK