Kent-Ieper lectures | Belgian Refugees in Scotland during the First World War

During the First World War Scotland housed close to 19,000 civilian Belgian civilian exiles and accommodated hundreds of wounded Belgian troops. Glasgow was the reception area for around 8% of the estimated 250,000 displaced Belgians in Britain. This lecture considers the experiences of Belgians living in Scotland during the war and also explains why Scottish hospitality for Belgian refugees was uniquely administered by a committee of Glasgow’s municipal authority, Glasgow Corporation.

Using surviving, partial Glasgow Corporation Belgian Refugee Committee registration records for 1914 and early 1915, this lecture discusses the composition of the displaced Belgian population in Scotland. These registers record over 8,200 refugees ranging in age up to 86, including over 2,200 children aged under 16, with roughly equal numbers of girls and boys.

This lecture also explains how Glasgow’s and the wider Scottish response was distinctive since the costs of supporting and housing displaced Belgians were funded by people, trades unions and churches across Scotland. Elsewhere in Britain funding for the support of Belgian refugees housed in those areas came direct from central government.

The lecture further considers the work of two Scottish women in support of displaced Belgians. Mary E. Boyle, an author and paleontologist who was matron in one of Glasgow’s Belgian refugee homes, and Nurse Glen who provided the first point of contact between displaced Belgians and local Scottish medical and welfare services, as she supported and accompanied Belgian exiles who applied for admission into medical institution care.

The lecture concludes with a discussion of the swift repatriation arrangements from Scotland as the first group of Belgian refugees departed in early December 1918. By April 1919 a local newspaper reported that of the ‘nearly 20,000 refugees who received hospitality in Scotland only 480 remain.’

Over de spreker

Dr Jacqueline Jenkinson is a modern History graduate of the Universities of Glasgow and Edinburgh. She has published widely in the fields of migrant and minority history in the First World War, on the 1919 seaport riots, on Scotland's health in the inter war era, and on medical professionalisation in the 18th-20th centuries.

Over de Ieper-Kentlezingen

In Flanders Fields Museum en de School of History, University of Kent, presenteren in samenwerking met The Western Front Association een nieuwe reeks voordrachten over de geschiedenis van de Eerste Wereldoorlog, gratis en voor iedereen toegankelijk. De voertaal is Engels.

Praktisch

> Donderdag 5 maart 2026

> Om 19.00 uur

> Educatieve ruimte, In Flanders Fields Museum (Lakenhallen, Grote Markt, Ieper)

> Voertaal Engels

> inschrijven: https://www.inflandersfields.be/nl/programma-1/ieperkent2026-jacquelinejenkinson