Herbert Bagge and Belgium

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HERBERT BAGGE - HIS CONNECTION WITH BELGIUM by Anthony Avis

The Bagge family, perhaps of Swedish origin, were amongst the oldest landed families in Norfolk, dating back to the thirteenth century as evidenced by official records. By the early seventeenth century they were established merchants in King’s Lynn., importing and exporting agricultural products, Baltic timber, wine etc. They also set up a brewery in King’s Lynn towards the end of the century, which continued in existence under the Bagge name until 1929, when it was sold. The family commercial enterprises were at their peak in the nineteenth century, but from the twentieth century onwards they fell into decline and all were closed down or sold by 1930 and the last of the Bagges died in 1933.

The head of the family at the beginning of the nineteenth century was Richard Bagge (1810-1891). He had three sons and three daughters, and my query concerns one of the sons, Herbert, born 1843.

Whilst at Cambridge University it would seem Herbert developed a passion for gambling and running up debts which he could not pay, and which his father would not support him in doing so. Bankruptcy proceedings were taken against him and, in 1871, he was declared bankrupt. An offer by him to pay his creditors 6s 8d in the £ was rejected by them. Herbert did not attend the court hearing and the judge agreed to issue an arrest warrant if Herbert was found.

What he did was to flee to Antwerp, as apparently Belgium was a favourite place to go in such circumstances, as no extradition laws operated between the UK and Belgium. He very soon married after his arrival - to Maria Adelaide Rosalie Duquesnoy, of Antwerp - and a son was born to them in 1872, in Antwerp (Richard Ludwig Bagge), followed by a daughter, Pleasance. It is to be assumed he was supported financially by his father to enable him to live there.

Nothing more is known about him except that he appeared in England in 1891 for his grandfather’ s funeral, stayed a few days and went back to Belgium. At some time he transferred his residence to Brussels and may have become involved in the wine trade.

In February 1919 the local newspaper in King’s Lynn published two letters he had sent to the editor about living conditions in Brussels during the wartime occupation of the city by the German Army, and he remarked that he used a bath chair to get about; his second letter mentions his interest in wine and gave his address as 26 Rue de Bordeaux, Brussels. He died in Belgium, his date of death unknown, but it must have been in the 1920s.

His son, Richard Ludwig, was sent to England in 1880, on the separation of Herbert and Maria, to be looked after by the Bagge family and to be brought up as the heir apparent to his uncle; he thereafter seems to have spent most of his time in England. On the death of his uncle - his father’s brother, who had no children -in 1908 he inherited the large estate of the Bagge family.

His sister, Pleasance, had an adventurous life. She left home in Belgium when she was sixteen and joined a circus, becoming a bareback rider, and having caught the eye of a rich Dutchman, R A Klerok, married him and went to live in Holland. She lived to the age of ninety nine, had no children and left a considerable fortune to the five daughters of her brother.

It would be interesting to learn something about Herbert’s last years in Belgium, when he died and where he was buried, and whether he appears in any census records of the time.