Émile Cammaerts

Émile Leon Cammaerts CBE (16 March 1878 in Brussels, Belgium – 2 November 1953, Radlett, Hertfordshire) was a Belgian playwright, poet (including war poet) and author who wrote primarily in English and French.

Demonstrating his interests, Cammaerts translated three books by art, history and landscapes expert John Ruskin and selected G. K. Chesterton Father Brown detective stories in La clairvoyance du père Brown.

He became Professor of Belgian Studies at the University of London in 1933, most of his works and papers are held there in the Senate House Library, and Emeritus Professor on retiring.

Cammaerts was educated at the University of Brussels and later at the revolutionary Université Nouvelle where he studied geography. He migrated to England in 1908 and was christened as an Anglican aged 34 (c.1912) taking for that event the middle name Pieter. He married the Shakespearian actress Helen Tita Braun, stage name Tita Brand (daughter of the 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 Cammaerts and the actress Kippe Cammaerts, mother of Michael Morpurgo.

Cammaerts is the author of a famous quotation, often mistakenly attributed to G. K. Chesterton in his study on Chesterton:

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