This article by Paul-Félix Vernimmen, grandson of Félix Van Aerschodt, the last bellfounder with the family name, was originally published in French in Le Folklore Brabaçon, 1983, no. 237-238, pp7-30. It was then published as a booklet. The English translation is by me. I am grateful to Paul-Félix Vernimmen for permission to put the translated article on my website.
Les VAN AERSCHODT, fondeurs de cloches à Louvain
André Louis Van den Gheyn (1758-1833) succeeded a long line of bell founders whose furnaces were lit in 1506 in Mechelen, and who had been established in Louvain since 1727 (1).
Presumably after a dispute with his father, the famous founder André Joseph Van den Gheyn (1727-1790), he left this town in 1783 and remained in Nivelles for ten years, where the town provided him with a foundry near the Recollets convent; there he married Marie Isabelle Rochet (2). In 1792, shortly before their return to Louvain, their only daughter Anne Maximilienne (+1875) was born. She married Thomas Van Aerschodt (1769-1831).
From this union many children were born, including the two eldest André Louis Jean (1814-1888) and Séverin Guillaume (1819-1885) who made a reputation not only as founders of ringing bells but also of carillons.
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From 1829 the name of A.L.J. Van Aerschodt appears on the bells cast by his grandfather. After the latter’s death in 1833, A.L.J. Van Aerschodt kept the two family names on his bells.
The foundry was then installed at 206 rue de Tirlemont. In 1843 permission was given to transfer its facilities to rue de Namur at no. 125 (3). His house, flanked by the monumental access door to the foundry, still exists there opposite rue des Soeurs Noires.
Until 1839 his bells were indistinguishable from those of his grandfather and were often decorated with friezes of angels, garlands or foliage. From 1840 his bells presented beautiful neo-Gothic decorations and around 1859 he added a profusion of baroque decorations, evidence of the taste of the time (4).
During the last ten years of his life he sometimes signed his bells ‘A.L.J. Van Aerschodt et filius Carolus’, including the name of his son André Louis Charles Van Aerschodt (1851-1897).
After the death of his father, he only seems to have had a limited production which is indistinguishable from the previous one. When he died he left three young children; no more bells will be cast on Rue de Namur.
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Séverin Guillaume Van Aerschodt took courses at the Academy of Fine Arts in Louvain. Then he left for Paris where he was admitted to the studio of sculptor Antoine Etex (Ecole des Beaux-Arts). It is mentioned that he executed bas-reliefs in Paris intended for the planned cenotaph of Napoleon I. Following the revolution of 1848, he was obliged, like many artists, to leave France and returned to Louvain. From 1842 he exhibited sculptures in Brussels. In the following years he sculpted a God the Father for the St-Quentin church in Louvain (1847), several statues for the Town Hall (1849-1850), busts, and a descent from the cross (his funerary monument in the cemetery of Vlierbeek-Kessel-Lo) (5).
On a bronze matrix still preserved he calls himself a painter and represents himself as such in a self-portrait; the literature, however, does not mention any pictorial work.
Along with his work as a sculptor he collaborated with his brother André Louis Jean. A manuscript dates from this period which explains in detail the techniques of bell founding. Soon he abandoned sculpture to devote himself to the work of his maternal ancestors.
In 1850 he built a house on the newly created rue Léopold, as well as a foundry adjoining it, overlooking this street and rue de la Station.
He cast his first bells there in 1851 and joined forces with a friend Félix Van Espen until the latter’s death around 1856.
The first reverberatory oven had a capacity of approximately 7,000kg. In 1855 the general inspector noted the existence of a second similar oven weighing 3,000 kg. The installation was completed in 1863 with a small 300kg furnace and later with a small crucible furnace. These expansions did not seem to please everyone; a neighbour on rue de la Station describes the activities as follows: ‘…in recent years the castings have been weekly and sometimes bi-weekly. Each time the ovens operate a rain of ash and soot covers the properties and the windows must remain tightly closed; the chimneys let out columns of flames, which rise several meters high and constitute a real danger for the population…’. (6)
The ringing bells of Séverin Van Aerschodt were decorated, in the first years, with abundant baroque or gothic decoration, but structured and of a sure taste denoting a rigorous training as a sculptor, and subsequently became lighter (4) . His carillon bells, as well as those of his brother, remain minimally decorated so as not to influence their tone.
The bourgeois nineteenth century abandoned the art of the carillon, so brilliant in our countries since the 16th century and until the French Revolution, in favour of concert halls. The Van Aerschodt brothers were the only founders still capable of providing sets of harmonic bells: they tuned their bells with their particular low tones and their large romantic chimes as our famous founders did in the previous century, however following the standards and requirements of their time.
Even more than his older brother, Séverin Van Aerschodt enjoyed an international reputation, as evidenced by the examples cited below. The musicologist H.R. Haweis expressed his enthusiasm for the art of Van Aerschodt (7): it was thanks in particular to Séverin that the art of the carillon would be introduced to Great Britain, from where it would spread to Anglo-Saxon countries. and the British Empire after the First War.
Like so many other houses, the Van Aerschodt brothers participated in a number of exhibitions that the 19th century was so fond of – let us cite for example:
A.L.J. Van Aerschodt: Exhibition of the products of national industry, Brussels 1841; Paris Universal Exhibition 1878 (bell weighing 1,200 to 1,300 kg); National exhibition, Brussels 1880 (1,160 kg bell).
Séverin Van Aerschodt: Exhibition of industrial arts in Belgium 1853; Antwerp Universal Exhibition 1885 (ringing of 7 bells); Vatican Exhibition 1888.
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It is not without interest to point out that a younger brother, Dominique Van Aerschodt, requested authorization in 1857 to establish a furnace for a bell foundry in a house located in rue de Bruxelles 199A, i.e. along the ramparts. The authorization was limited to the annual smelting of 1,500 kg of copper (8). It is not obvious that Dominique Van Aerschodt established this small foundry – it does not seem that a bell bears his name.
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When Séverin Van Aerschodt died in 1885, numerous orders for abroad were in progress. His children being still too young, it was their tutor, the Josephite Félicien Bachmann, who took charge of the destiny of the foundry for a few years under the name Fonderie Séverin Van Aerschodt.
Séverin’s brother-in-law, Alphonse Beullens, with experience acquired in the foundry, created a separate bell foundry which, through his successor Omer Michaux, was maintained until the interwar period.
The widow of Severin Van Aerschodt, Marie Beullens, had a beautiful house built by the architect Louis Van Arenbergh on the land of the foundry, rue de la Station, and in the following years a series of rental houses on part of the land on rue Leopold.
The foundry where bells and artistic bronzes (statuaries) were cast had in 1896, in addition to the company directors, three directors or foremen and 18 workers, 11 of whom were listed as involved in the manufacture of bells (9).
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Séverin’s eldest son, Alphonse Van Aerschodt, born in Louvain in 1869, after having studied mining engineering, signed his name on bells from 1896 but soon left the foundry to his brother to install with great success a factory and foundry of bronzes and lighting fixtures in Forest, avenue Van Volxem 328, as well as showrooms 43 rue Royale in Brussels.
Félix Van Aerschodt, born in 1870, who took care of the foundry from the age of 16, took it over in 1898. Like his father, he received training as a sculptor which he perfected in the workshop of Jef Lambeaux. Félix Van Aerschodt reflected the end of the century where the industrial revolution at its peak made everything possible but whose momentum was shattered too soon by a new Thirty Years’ War.
He set up statuary foundries in St-Gilles, rue de la Source, and in Borgerhout; in Brussels, with a partner he opened the second cinema in the capital, The Royal Bioscope in boulevard du Nord, a pretext for prospecting in film studios in Paris, and also created commercial businesses in Brussels (importing furs, and with another partner a drinking establishment, the Bodega). His most important activity however remained the management of the bell and statuary foundry in Louvain.
After the closure of the foundry on rue de Namur and the merger of the two foundries, the one on rue Léopold continued to use the eclectic decorative style of André Louis Jean Van Aerschodt.
Like his predecessors, Felix Van Aerschodt participated in exhibitions, including the 1889 Paris Universal Exhibition where he exhibited a ring of four bells and a chime of eight bells. He was a member or vice-president of the committee at the universal exhibitions of Antwerp 1894 and, as well as his brother Alphonse, of Brussels 1910 and Ghent 1913. Note also at these two exhibitions the presence of their brother José (born in 1875) founder of copper and operator of an art workshop, established at 71 rue de la Station in Louvain.
Jef Denijn, who on Monday evenings made the old tower of St-Rombaut in Mechelen sing and revealed his art to listeners from all over the world, was familiar with rue Léopold.
The Aberdeen carillon (Scotland), inaugurated in the presence of the Van Aerschodt family in 1887 (10), was one of the first to be equipped with a keyboard and a modern mechanism built following the directives of Jet Denijn. For decades he would remain an advisor and friend.
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Along with other Leuven personalities, Félix Van Aerschodt was taken hostage by the German invaders during the sack of the city. Released in Antwerp, he escaped to England with his family, where he was entrusted by the government with the management of a foundry & munition Works, in Spitalfields (London), 46 Spelman Street, installed in the buildings of the Robert Warner bell foundry (11), and which mainly employed Belgian refugees.
The war led not only to the destruction of the buildings and equipment, but also to the destruction of the collections of the old foundry: the old models of the bells and mortars (i.e. the profiles or templates), the plans or models of the mechanisms and mounts, the bas-relief ornaments – the inventories mention around five hundred – and the archives. The models of bells currently in use and the casting books (including the aforementioned manuscript by Séverin Van Aerschodt) were fortunately sheltered and saved. Some relics dating from the Van den Gheyns were found.
After the reconstruction in 1920, the first casting took place at the beginning of the following year. During this very short period of calm where the hope of a rediscovered prosperity would be betrayed by the serious economic crisis, activities were be devoted to the restoration of the bell tower heritage lost in the turmoil. It was also in 1926 that the new Nivelles carillon was inaugurated, which was unanimously appreciated (12).
On the initiative of Félix Van Aerschodt, encouraged by Jef Denijn, four Belgian bell founders, including Marcel Michiels of Tournai, Omer Michaux of Louvain and Constant Sergeys of Chênée, signed an agreement in 1926 at the Carillon School in Mechelen with a view to setting up a limited company in order to respond to the growing competition from two English founders, mainly in the United States.
This project did not come to fruition and only Félix Van Aerschodt and Marcel Michiels decided to join forces in 1929. This year Félix Van Aerschodt bought the large workshops of the company Leuvensche Metaalwerken, in liquidation, located on the boulevard de Diest 78 and transferred the foundry there.
In 1931 the two founders separated, probably due to incompatibility and a personal dispute – during the installation of carillons in the United States Marcel Michiels presented himself as the successor of the Van Aerschodt foundry (13).
Until the war, faithful to ancient traditions, the foundry on Boulevard de Diest continued to cast mainly ringing bells. Félix Van Aerschodt’s artistic conceptions remained those of his environment, loving beautiful things but his preference was for old styles. Félix Van Aerschodt retired to his country house in Veltem. He died there on June 23, 1943.
On June 5, 1943 the first convoy of bells left our country and arrived at the foundries of Hamburg (14): the occupier requisitioned the bells from Belgium.
Paul-Felix VERNIMMEN
Veltem 1982.
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The carillons and some important ringing bells
Translator’s note: the information in italics gives the current status, where known, of the carillons and chimes. Carl Scott Zimmerman’s website towerbells.org provided much useful information on installations in Europe.
André Louis Jean Van Aerschodt
In the absence of a complete inventory, the following list is only given as an example:
1843 Herentals carillon of 29 bells (all but 4 replaced in 1994)
1843 Louvain (Ste-Gertrude) 5 small bells for the carillon
1853 Dunkerque (France) carillon of 29 bells (destroyed 1944)
1858 Namur carillon of 40 bells (8 bells remain)
1867 Boston (GB) carillon of 36 bells (recast into clock chime 1897)
1868 Bourbourg (France) carillon of 37 bells (destroyed 1940)
1872 Bois-le-Duc (Pays-Bas) carillon of 47 bells (this is s’Hertogenbosch, all bells replaced 1925)
1879 Alost carillon of 38 bells (all replaced by 1958).
Other important bells:
1844 Malines (St-Rombaut) ‘Salvator’, 8,335 kg
1847 Louvain (Ste-Gertrude) ca 3,750 kg
1849 Hal (St-Martin) ca 3,500 kg
1865 Courtrai (St-Martin) ca 5,000kg and ca 3,750kg.
Séverin Van Aerschodt
1856 Harelbeke 9 bells for the carillon (derelict by 1914 and replaced in 1932)
1858 Wingene carillon of 33 bells (partly destroyed 1914, 13 bells remain, retuned in 2011)
1860 Gand (Baudeloo) 11 bells for the carillon
1867 Léau 16 bells for the carillon (this is Zootleeuw, remodelled 1963)
1867 Roulers carillon of 33 bells (destroyed 1917)
1868 Zottegem 12 bells for the carillon (only 2 bells remain)
1871 Mespelare 14 bells for the carillon (all but 9 bells replaced in 1993)
1873 lzegem 6 bells for the carillon (destroyed in WW1)
1874 Tournai 9 bells for the carillon (extant)
1875 Cattistock (GB) carillon of 33 bells (destroyed 1940)
1876 Rome (St-Paul intra muros) carillon of 23 bells (extant)
1877 Antoing 7 bells for the carillon (extant, not playable)
1877 Eaton Hall (GB) carillon of 28 bells (extant)
1880 Courtrai carillon of 47 bells (29 bells remain, retuned 1980)
1882 Philadelphia (USA) carillon of 28 bells (extant)
1885 Aberdeen (Scotland) carillon of 36 bells (disused by 1933, recast 1952)
Sets of 10 to 15 bells were also delivered to Great Britain:
Lye (1883) (extant)
Kidderminster (1884) (actually Bishops Wood, extant)
Highmoor (1884) (scrapped 1920)
London (1885) (actually Lower Beeding, recast / retuned 1926).
Other important bells:
It would be tedious to publish in the context of this article the list complete with hundreds of bells by Séverin and Félix Van Aerschodt, so only bells weighing more than 3,000 kg are mentioned:
1861 Malines (St-Rombaut) ‘Rombaut’, 4,235 kg
1863 Nivelles 3,725 kg
1868 Anvers (St-Paul) 4,675 kg
1869 Merchtem 3,040 kg
1869 Boom 3,850 kg
1870 Opwijk 3,140 kg
1870 Liege (St-Paul) 8,190 kg
1873 Laeken 4,045 kg.
Fonderie Séverin Van Aerschodt
1886 Hambourg (Germany) carillon of 32 bells (destroyed in WW1)
1887 Frederiksborg (Denmark) carillon of 28 bells (Hillerod Castle, 22 bells remain)
1887 Goes (Pays-Bas) 6 bells for the carillon (recast 1969)
1887 Lerwick (Shetland) chime of 11 bells (recast 1976).
Félix Van Aerschodt
Chimes of bells for Great Britain:
London (1898) (Kilburn, recast / retuned 1926)
Sittingbourne (1905) (recast / retuned 2000)
1901 Verviers carillon of 36 bells (all replaced 1937)
1904 Hamburg St-Nicolas carillon of 35 bells (destroyed in WW1)
1909 Ypres carillon of 35 bells (destroyed in WW1)
1911 Mons 25 bells for the carillon (7 bells survive)
1913 Kiel (Antwerp) carillon of 28 bells (moved 2002 to the country estate of Félix in Veltem, retaining the original clappers and keyboard)
1913 Anvers 7 bells for the carillon (all replaced 1993)
1914 Graz (Austria) carillon of 28 bells
1925 St-Sebastien (Spain) chime of 16 bells
1926 Nivelles carillon of 43 bells (destroyed in 1944. The remaining damaged bells are displayed in the cloister of Sainte Gertrude church)
1928 Santa Monica (USA) carillon of 35 bells (bells now at Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels, split into 2 separate chimes).
Other important bells of more than 3,000 kg:
Anvers (St-Antoine), Borgerhout (Ste-Famille, St-Jean), Hamme (Fl. or.), Hoogstraten, Landen, Malines (N.-D. d’Hanswijck), Mons,
Wavre-Notre-Dame, Ruppelmonde, Verviers, Bruxelles (Zunz).
* * *
Very few ringing bells from the Van Aerschodt founders escaped German requisitions. Furthermore, since the 1950s, many carillons have been victims of the zeal of promoters, newcomers, made strong by the use of a technology new (in terms of sound analysis) and naive insurance, whose products at the time are currently subject to criticism while that the qualities and exceptional timbre of the Van Aerschodt bells.
References
The following sources were extensively used for this article; no specific references are given:
the archives of the Van Aerschodt foundry,
the casting books of Séverin and Félix Van Aerschodt,
“Fonderie Séverin Van Aerschodt”, brochure, 60 pages, Louvain circa 1887.
(1) G. VAN DOORSLAER, Les van den Ghein, fondeurs de cloches, canons, sonnettes et mortiers, à Malines, dans les Annales de l’Académie Royale d’Archéologie de Belgique, Vol. LXII, 6ieme série, t. II, 1910.
J. WAUTERS, Een Thiensche klokkengietersfamilie, Tirlemont 1924.
X. VAN ELEWYCK, Matthias Van den Gheyn et les célèbres fondeurs de cloches de ce nom, Louvain 1862.
R.M. BARNES, Matthias Van den Gheyn and his preludes for carrilon, Université de Stanford 1961.
A. LEHR, Van Paardebel tot Speelklok, Zaltbommel 1971, p. 239 et sv. (VIII De beiaardkunst in de 18ieme eeuw). Malgré l’importance des fondeurs Van den Gheyn de Louvain aucune étude générale ne leur a été consacrée.
(2) EDM. JAMART, Notice sur l’Académie de dessin et l’Ecole Industrielle réunies, précédée d’un aperçu sur le passé artistique de Nivelles, Nivelles 1885, p. 24 et 25; included in J.P. FELIX, Orgues, carillons et chanterie à Nivelles, Bruxelles 1975, p. 75.
(3) Archives de la ville de Louvain, dossier 11.187 nos. 16049 et 16239.
(4) lnstitut royal du patrimoine artistique, documents photographiques.
(5) Chev. EDM. MARCHAL, La sculpture et les chefs·d’oeuvre de l’orfèvrerie belges, Bruxelles 1895, p. 704.
Dr V. THIEME und Dr F. BECKER, Allgemeines Lexikon der bildende Künst/er, Leipzig 1907, v. Aerschodt, van.
E. BENEZIT, Dictionaire des peintres, sculpteurs, dessinateurs et graveurs, v. Aerschodt, van.
EUG. DE SEYN, Dictionnaire biographique des Sciences, des Lettres et des Arts en Belgique, Bruxelles 1936, v. Van Aerschodt.
Académie Royale des Sciences, des Lettres et des Beaux-Arts en Belgique, Biographie nationale, v. Aerschodt, Van.
Exposition Nationale des Beaux-Arts, Bruxelles 1842, p. 83.
Exposition Nationale des Beaux-Arts, Bruxelles 1845, p. 115.
Exposition générale des Beaux-Arts, catalogue explicatif, Bruxelles 1854, p.111.
DE DEMERBODE, 28.6.1847, Borstbeeld van den schilder P.-J. Verhaghen door den heer S. Van Aerschodt van Leuven.
AD. EVERAERTS, Monographie de l’Hôtel de ville, Louvain 1871, p. 47-48.
(6) Archives de la ville, idem, nos 2003, 2928, 50750.
(7) H.R. HAWEIS, A chat about bells, & More about bells, The Magazine of Art, vol. V, p. 226 et sv.
H.R. HAWEIS, Bells and belfries, The English Illustrated Magazine , février 1890.
(8) Archives de la ville, idem, no. 22676.
(9) 4ieme recensement général des industries et des métiers, 31.10.1896, Ministère de l’industrie et du travail, Office du travail, section de la statistique, Bruxelles 1900.
(10) Aberdeen Bon-Accord and Northern Pictorial, 6.12.1951.
(11) G.P. Elphick, Sussex Bells and Belfries, p. 169, London and Chichester 1970.
(12) Larousse Mensuel, novembre 1928 “Carillon merveilleux de finesse. Les soirs de concert, en été, la ville
est pleine d’autos.”
(13) The Tidings, 25.12.1931.
(14) DOM J. KREPS, La bataille des cloches, Le Revue Générale Belge no. 45, juillet 1949.