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As the first huddle of Belgian refugees prepared to leave their native shores for the British city of Leeds in October 1914, excitement, relief and trepidation laced the air. Sister Marie Antoine, who had been forced to flee when her convent in Willebroeck, a village between Antwerp and Brussels, was attacked by German shells, described the exodus at the dockside in Antwerp: “We took our places on the deck of this little boat… There were seats for about half of the number of passengers, but we crowded together as best we could, with a feeling of security, for we all knew that within a few hours we would be safely out of reach of those terrible bombs and shrapnel.” A mere four hours later, after a freezing journey across the sea, “the hills and rugged banks of England made their appearance” - safety was finally in sight.

The British, for their part, were eager to catch a glimpse of these beleaguered victims of war. After all, for most of the population, the arrival of Belgian refugees was their first encounter with the human costs of the First World War. Belgium had announced in July 1914 that it would uphold its neutrality, as guaranteed by Britain, Prussia, France, Austria, Russia and the Netherlands in the 1839 Treaty of London. But by August 1914, the Germans were advancing through the country to reach France. Refugees began to flee in their thousands. On 9