In October 1914 circa 250,000 refugees arrived in the UK, fleeing from their homes in Belgium, a country that had just been invaded by Germany. A recent accession of parish registers from the parish of Tyringham cum Filgrave set us on the trail of one such refugee family who found themselves in the tiny North Bucks hamlet, Tyringham.
The story starts with PR 212/1/10, the register of burials for the Parish of Tyringham cum Filgrave 1814-2010. This register is a recent deposit with us, and as with all new deposits, our conservator Sam gave it a quick condition check and clean. Whilst doing this she spotted an entry recording the burial of three-week old Franciscus Van der Bergh on the 21st December 1914. There was a note in the entry that he was a refugee from Aerschott, Belgium. The sadness of this death, at a time of great personal upheaval for the Van der Bergh family made us want to find out more about the family.
The entry also states that the burial ceremony was performed in part by the local Roman Catholic priest; this makes it unclear how long the family had been in the area. Franciscus is not listed in the Baptism register, but this could be because he was baptised into the Catholic faith, records that we don’t have. Burial registers do not give details about cause of death or name parents, so to find out more about the Van der Bergh family I turned to the village school’s log books, to see if Franciscus had any elder siblings.
Log book E/LB/212/2 – p30,p33) mentions two Belgian Boys: “Jan 12th 1915 Miss Ferrar would like the Belgian children from Tyringham Lodge to enter this school… Jan 14th The two Belgian boys admitted. The children are very kind to them, and they seem to be very intelligent…Joanna Van der Bergh admitted Mar 12 1915”
The school’s admission register also gives us some details. It records the entry to the school of Frans Van der Bergh of Tyringham Lodge Gates, and states that he is exempt from religious education due to being Roman Catholic. The register also names his father as Henri Van der Bergh. Frans left the school on 5/5/1916 –to be move to Olney. In 1914 the nine-year old Frans has three younger siblings connected to the school: Louis aged seven; Johanna aged five and Bertha aged four.
The Van der Bergh family appear to have been taken in by the wealthy owners Tynringham Lodge, out of charity and given the gate house to live in. This was possibly the Konig family, owners of Tyrningham House.
Extract from Tyringham Burial Register, our reference PR 212/1/10
We want to find out more about the Van der Bergh family – if you have any suggestions please get in touch with us via archives@buckscc.gov.uk
Milton Keynes in Fifty Historic Records 