Campine workers colonies: developing a new community

The vast empty heathlands in the heart of the Campine were reasonably flat and were sparsely populated; little more than small villages and hamlets could be found scattered around the area, especially along streams. Under French rule the monastic rule that lay over most of these settlements was abolished and so was the influence of the Duke of Brabant. Instead municipalities were created mostly based on the different parishes already in existence. These marginal rural communities had weak governance and relied heavily on the few educated people within their community. As I've mentioned when discussing the establishment of Bata in Best, DAF in Stratum and Philips in Strijp near Eindhoven, industrial entrepreneurs sought out small municipalities with good communications (either by road rail or water) near a larger established town or city. A similar phenomenon lead to Van der Marken setting up his factory in the municipality Hof van Delft (Garden of Delft) outside the city limits of the fortified city.

The heavy industry that found its way to the Campine from 1880 onwards chose sites near the Campine Canal. This shipping canal was first conceived under French rule as the Grand Canal du Nord (1810) linking Rhine, Meuse and Scheldt. Only sections of this canal were actually realised. A section -between Herentals and Ten Aard- was incorporated into the new Campine Canal (now called Canal Bocholt-Herentals) that was built between 1843 and 1846. In 1866 the railway linking Hasselt and Eindhoven via Neerpelt was opened. In 1879 the Antwerp - Rhyd railway was opened that intersected this older line at Overpelt. It's obvious why the German industrialist Schulte chose this very spot to buy hundreds of acres of heathland along the canal in 1880 to set up a zinc factory. He had to look beyond the Ruhr Area as zinc smelting was already considered to polluting and regulations were being imposed there. The poor municipality was eager to sell off what they considered wasteland with the promise of more employment and more economic development. Along a spur line off the main railway a section of the site was allocated for housing the workers. These incidentally came from elsewhere and the new factory meant little for the unemployed or struggling locals.

The orthogonal layout of this workers colony (cité) is striking and influenced by German examples. This layout allows for a hierarchal set up  with a central church (C) and directs the placement of both the housing for supervisors (1) as well as workers (3), but not the housing for engineers (2) along the old road to Overpelt. The zinc factory (F) is located to the north, above the prevailing south-western winds. Along an older road the Casino (Ca) -a recreational hall, a porters lodge (PL) and an open square Halteplein (Hp - Train Halt Square) were situated. The separation by class is enforced by the placement of the two schools (S) and the now demolished hospital (H). Along the southern edge of the workers colony of Overpelt-Fabriek the hamlet of Leuken (L) was situated and expanded westward along a pre-existing dirt track. To keep the workers from alcohol abuse, a sports club was part of every German colony, so the situation here is no different with the football pitches (FP) for football/soccer located on the edge of the factory settlement.

Between the Canal Dessel-Kwaadmechelen (built 1856) and the Beverlo Canal (1857) that made the military camp of Leopoldburg accessible by water once stood three farms of Postel Priory: the Wezelsche Hoeve, Nieuwe Hoeve and Rauwsche Hoeve.  Not far from the point at Blauwe Kei where the Beverlo Canal branches off the Campine Canal a large area of heathland was acquired by the Mining Company Vieille Montagne in 1881. The name refers to the mines at Kelmis in the Altenberg (Old Mountain) which had been in use since the 15th century. Not far from Wezel Farm a workers colony was set up with separate streets for directors, engineers, white collar and blue collar workers. The new settlement was first named Cité Vieille Montagne, but was simply called Wezel by non-French-speaking locals. Near this large site a gunpowder factory was built in 1889, followed two years later by an ammunitions factory. This was followed in 1924 by a glass works on adjacent land in Lommel. The colony and the factory were  demolished in 2006-2008.

The Cité Vieille Montagne grew into a new settlement and comprises of several sections that were developed separately. Hence the layout is neither formal nor planned, but rather haphazard in character. The housing was situated west of the factory (1) that still is surrounded by waste water ponds (p) on the Beverlo Canal (2). There is no real centre, although the St Joseph Street acts as the main street with above it the football pitches (3), the Casino with (film)theatre (4), the directors villa (5), the church of St Joseph (6) and tennis courts (7). Near the factory a convent (c) with hotel was built. At the other end of the main street the villas for higher management (HM) and the detached houses for blue collar employees (BC) were built near a row of shops (8) developed by  third parties. Workers were housed in small cottages on large plots to ease the transition from a rural to an industrial environment. The first cité ouvrière Cité Balen (cB) was built along the canal as a series of parallel streets. Opposite stood the now demolished Cité Forcité (cF) for workers of the gunpowder factory. After 1920 the Cité Mol (cM) was built on land once belonging to the Wezelsche Hoeve (Weasel Farm - 9). A small park (10) was included in this development.

 

Another Walloon firm , owned by the Dor brothers set up a zinc works south of Budel-Schoot in 1892. They built a much more regular colony here with the same kind of class separation. The colony was named Place Dor (Dorplein in Dutch) and as in Wezel the workers were mostly French-speaking. Another common feature is that both factories and colonies were built along the "Iron Rhine" railway.

Yet another zinc works with sulphuric acid plant was founded in 1904 on the Maatheide between Lommel and Blauwe Kei. Here a site was chosen along the Campine Canal, again with a spur line from the main railway. The site was chosen as a fertiliser plant had been in use here since 1895. This site was the second venture of the German Schulte family in the Campine after Overpelt-Fabriek. The settlement was named Lommel-Werkplaatsen (but was also known as Lommel-Fabriek to align with the first site). Much like its sister colony Lommel-Werkplaatsen has a regular layout of parallel streets with a limited number of building types. From the beginning there was better provision for the families of the workers housed in the colony, as the Sisters of the Devine Saviour -a catholic religious order- were invited to run a school and hospital here.

The Lommel-Workshops Colony is again distinctly German in approach. An older track across the heath was used as the backbone of the colony. The colony is socially segregated with the villa of the director (1) opposite the factory and a row of large detached houses for the engineers (2) along the new thoroughfare linking Lommel and Mol. The workers were housed on two streets running south from the main road. These were named Dubbelrij (Double Row) and Enkelrij (Single Row) depending on wether the housing was on both or one side of the street. The northern sections (D and E) were built first with the southern section (D2 and E2) developed after 1915. Between the houses there were communal gardens and small animal paddocks (a). The Catholic Sisters came to Lommel-Werkplaatsen in 1907 and were housed in a convent (3) opposite the school for girls (4). The Casino or community hall (5) was erected around the same time. Next to this public building a school for boys (6) was built next to the new church of St Barbara (1912). Behind the church a cemetery (+) and sport pitches (s) were built. In 1925 a Capuchin monk created a  Lourdes Cave and a park devoted to the seven woes of Mary (m) which was later extended with a park with the Stations of the Cross and a Calvary (c).

Another colony to be built in the Campine was the one at Sint-Jozef-Olen. In 1913 the Turnhout entrepreneur Jozef Leemans bought a large section of the unfertile heath at Heibloem between the railway and the Campine Canal for a new metal works processing nonferrous ores from the Congo. Not simply the company moved to the new site, but the workers -all 30 of them- came with. For them Leemans had a workers colony built directly adjacent to the metal works. As the enterprise grew so did the colony, which was expanded in a regular manner with segregated housing provision according class of worker. In 1914 a temporary church was erected for the settlement. The actual church building on the edge of the colony, beyond the shops, was finally consecrated in 1925 and dedicated to Saint Joseph, namesake of the founder. There was a conscious effort to segregate the different classes of workers with 164 dwellings for workers, 16 for middle management, 30 for engineers and 4 for upper management.

The Cité Olen again knows a regular layout based on German examples.  A new street with housing for engineers (E) ran off the a pre-existing country lane towards the factory site. It divides the cité (C) with simple semidetached cottages for the workers, again on large plots, and the housing for management (Mm) and the 4 villa's for the director (D) and upper management (V). A mess (M) for the engineers and a hostel (H) for single workers was included in the scheme.  The factory (F) with a freestanding water tower (W) still stands at the end of a spur line (SL) off the Herentals-Mol railway - part of the "Iron Rhine". The sporting ground (S) was located along the railway. The houses torn down in the 1970s are shown in red.

The last workers colony of the Campine still in existence can be found opposite the plate glass works in Gompel between Mol and Wezel. In 1920 the GlaVer (Glaces et Verres) company bought 73 hectares of woodland along the Dessel Canal on the road to Wezel. The factory was built the following year and was in production from 1923. Opposite a small workers colony was built on a regular pattern of streets but with garden village inspired vernacular buildings (not unlike Heveadorp). A separate villa park was carved out of existing woodland further east. After the housing had been finished in 1925 attention shifted towards the realisation of a Casino. This building combined both a dancehall, a dining room and a guesthouse for Walloon specialists visiting this most northern production site of the company.

The Cité Gompel shows the incorporation of Unwinesque design principles in a workers colony resulting in a rather hybrid development that is still mostly a workers colony. To the north the "Iron Rhine" railway (1) gives access by train; to the west access is provided over water by the Dessel Canal (2). The plate glass works comprise of an older section (3) and a second factory (3b) on the same site. As glass production is much less polluting the villa of the director (4) is situated directly next to the factory with a second mansion (4b) built further along a winding road.Along that road that was built in existing woodland several semidetached houses for engineers (5) were built. The workers were housed directly south of the factory gates on the main road in a regular colony (6), with a Casino (7) and sports fields (8) on the edge.

I'm omitting the Zinc works at Rotem in this overview as this factory never had a colony. The tiny village of Rotem expanded by unregulated house building along pre-existing roads and lanes. Two parallel streets were laid out next to the factory site, on the other side of the shipping canal, but a proper workers colony was never realised. On a 130 hectare site a zinc works was built between the canal and the railway (a spur line to Genk) by two Walloon industrialists in 1911. Emile Dor also invested heavily in this venture.

This type of heavy industry is highly polluting. The decommissioned sites in Lommel and Rotem lay waste for many years as the ground is simply toxic and were finally encapsulated to prevent further pollution of ground water. The sites still in industrial use have been stabilised. In the whole region historic depositions from the air and rain mean that eating fruit and vegetables from allotments and gardens is advised against.