Belgium: Famous for its fine chocolates and its varieties of beer. But Bollinckx? Surely, that’s something polite society would wish to keep quiet about?
In its time, the Bollinckx enterprises in Brussels were something of a leading light in the production of steam power units for factories. They manufactured for the Belgian market and also for countries where the need for robustness and easy maintenance were paramount.

The first tentative steps in Belgium’s industrial heritage restoration. A good site has been acquired at La Fonderie and they have started rescuing material as factories are being demolished. The front yard at the museum now stores several interesting components of the age awaiting attention. Photos: Jeremy Woolfe unless stated.

During a period spanning a century or so, starting in the mid-1800s, Bollinckx had a workforce of thousands making a great range of machinery, from horizontal steam engines to associated factory belt drive systems. Now, very little remains. The scrap-man’s scythe has been unfortunately very thorough, although Old Glory’s Derek Rayner did come across a rare survivor at an industrial museum in Turkey a few years ago.  
However, closer at hand, a winged angel has emerged, with the objective of locating, restoring, and displaying such gems that remain. This saviour takes the form of a new museum location - almost hidden - in a former industrialised zone of central Brussels.
La Fonderie (the Foundry) museum has set off on a road that could make it a most interesting museum, and in some ways, unique in the world. At present, much of its material is still in store, or in pieces, awaiting a painstaking restoration. However, things are moving ahead, so that now, at last, its first restored steam engine is on the point of turning over on steam, from its own boiler.
Museum director, Guido Vanderhulst, says: ‘The first steam milestone should help to give life to our efforts. It should encourage enthusiasm from a far larger public than is the case at present.’ The unit concerned is a comparatively modest small workshop horizontal cylinder power unit of the late 1800s (see news item Old Glory, May 2003).
More impressive, however, are other items awaiting restoration. They include a large Bollinckx steam mill engine, an interesting ‘gazogéne’ producer gas unit also from Bollinckx and a smaller steam engine from Walschaerts.
The museum is an initiative which was first dreamed of back in 1983. At that time, a group of people from universities, trades unions, local authorities and cultural bodies set up a non-profit organisation to act as an institution to further the cause of industrial archaeology. Guido Vanderhulst, an expert in industrial heritage, says that one important job for the group was to set up a methodical classification of data involving Belgium’s heritage. Now they have listed as many as 2,000 buildings as ‘interesting’ in Brussels alone.
Guido is a member of the Belgian Commission Royale des Monuments et des Sites, for the Brussels region - as its expert on industrial and social heritage. There are other CRMS’s for Flanders, the Dutch/Flemish region in the north of Belgium, and French-speaking Wallonia in the south. Each Commission is active in alerting its own federal region to appreciate its local industrial heritage.
Guido, who is unusual for someone in his position to be a qualified sociologist, says that the museum has been established in order to investigate and share the fascinating story of industrial architecture, transport networks and machines. Above all, it sets out to tell the story of the former workers, their ways of life and their struggles.
So far, the museum - which opened only in September 2001 - has acquired an excellent site, obtained solid support from the authorities and is now accumulating a range of interesting artefacts. Museum president, Jean Puissant, told Old Glory: ‘The museum’s plan is to be something of a hospital for old steam engines! It might also become something of a hospital to repair the population’s absence of pride in its own, rich, industrial heritage’.

One of the museum’s crowning glories - a rare
surviving Bollinckx steam horizontal engine, probably of around 50-75hp. It was discovered in 1990 in an abandoned carriage works near Brussels.

Guido develops the theme that caring for the old machines is being undertaken as a kind of social service, with the actual restoration work being carried out by people registered as unemployed. Their work is seen as a way to keep them active and perhaps even as part of re-training for future employment. Under this plan, finance comes from public authorities, as well as some from industrial sponsors.
La Fonderie could not be more fortunate with its location at a former foundry. Whilst most of the red-brick buildings are presently in ruins, when restored they will certainly be well endowed with character. Guido points out their good fortune in being appropriately located.