Émile Cammaerts

• Name — Émile Cammaerts • Born — 16 March 1878 • Birthplace — Saint-Gilles, Brussels, Belgium • Birth Name — Émile Leon Cammaerts • Died — 2 November 1953 • Place of death — Radlett, Hertfordshire, England • Spouse — Helen Tita Braun • Children — 6, including Francis • Occupation — * Playwright • poet • author

Cammaerts was born in Saint-Gilles, a suburb of Brussels.Birth certificate № 234 in 1878, Saint-Gilles. His father Jean François Pierre Cammaerts, a lawyer, came from the town of Vilvoorde. His Brussels-born mother was Marie Henriëtte Eugénie Nypels whose father, also a lawyer, was born in Maastricht in present-day Dutch Limburg. He was educated at the Free University of Brussels and later at the experimental Université Nouvelle where he studied geography. He migrated to England in 1908 and was baptised as an Anglican at age 34 (c. 1912) henceforth taking the middle name Pieter. He married the Shakespearian actress Helen Tita Braun, known as Tita Brand (daughter of opera singer Marie Brema), with whom he had six children, including Pieter Cammaerts, who was killed while serving in the Royal Air Force during World War II, prominent SOE operative Francis CammaertsFrancis Cammaerts was awarded the Distinguished Service Order and the Legion d'honneur, Croix de Guerre and the American Medal of Freedom. and Catherine Noel "Kippe" Cammaerts, an actress and mother of Michael Morpurgo. Jeanne Cammaerts (later Jeanne Lindley) collaborated with her father on Principalities and Powers (1947) and wrote his biography in 1962.

• Belgian Poems: Chants patriotique, et autres poèmes (1915)(translated into English by his wife) John Lane and Bodley Head, London; John Lane Company, New York • New Belgian Poems. Les trois rois et autres poèmes (1916 – 3 editions)(translated into English by his wife) John Lane and Bodley Head, London; John Lane Company, New York • Messines and other Poems (1918)

• A Christmas virgil at The New Theatre, St Martins Lane (1910) Tita played the widow • Carillon, stage recitation, music by Edward Elgar: at the first performance the poem was read by Tita Brand, Cammaerts' wife (1914) • Une voix dans le désert, stage recitation in English and French versions with music by Edward Elgar (1915) containing the poem for soprano aria below • Quand nos bourgeons se rouvriront and for the English version When the spring comes round from Une voix dans le désert • Le drapeau belge, recitation, with music by Edward Elgar (1917)

• Translation of Guido Gezelle from the West Flemish dialect with Charles Van der Borren, Poèmes choisis Louvain, 1908 • Preface to The glory of Belgium – An anthology (1915) collated and edited by Russell Markland and dedicated on the front opening to Cammaerts. • Baron Edmond de Cartier de Marchienne (1946) booklet • Article on William Dobson, painter An English successor to van Dyck: William Dobson Second series no III Penguin Parade by Penguin Books, Harmondsworth, 1948