ColonelCountHenry Robert Visart de Bury et de Bocarmé, CBE (11 June 1872, in Constance, Germany – 31 July 1958, in Montreal) was a career officer in the British and Canadian army, member of the Belgian nobility, academic, and Director of Canadian Ordnance Services, France.
He and his wife Agnes Mary Robertson (1870-1962), had two daughters Valérie (born 1899) and Joan (born 1905). The couple lived in Artillery Park, Quebec City.[citation needed]
On 19 November 1910, he received Royal Licence to use the title of Count in the British Realms.[3]
He retired from the Royal Regiment of Artillery in 1911. He joined the Royal Canadian Ordnance Corps in 1911. He was a Lieutenant-Colonel commanding a Canadian Field Artillery Brigade, Expeditionary Force during the First World War, and later became director of Canadian ordnance service in France during the First World War. He served as Director of Dominion Arsenals from 1920 to 1936. In 1936, he retired as a colonel. He rejoined the army in 1940 and served as district ordnance officer for the duration of the Second World War and retired in 1946.[4] He was awarded a CBE.[5] He was elected president of Royal Military College Club of Canada in 1913.
Family
The title of count had been granted to Colonel Louis-François Visart, lord of Bury and Bocarmé, by the Empress Maria-Theresa on 5 September 1753.[6]
The title was later confirmed (1822) and has remained in the family ever since.
Henry was the eldest son and heir of Count Robert Visart de Bury de Bocarmé (1845-1907), a Belgian nobleman, representative descendant of a distinguished family, who emigrated to Canada. His grandfather however, was the convicted and executed murderer Hippolyte Visart de Bocarmé (1818-1851).
Count Robert Visart de Bury, of Bury in Péruwelz, Belgium and Saint John, New Brunswick, a civil engineer, studied at the Episcopal College of Mecheln, in Belgium, at the University of Zurich and at the Polytechnic School of Stuttgart in Württemberg. He was employed as a civil engineer by the Orléans Railway Company and by the Government of Württemberg in the survey of the Black Forest Railway. He married Miss Simonds of Saint John, New Brunswick. The couple came to New Brunswick in 1873, and lived in Portland, New Brunswick and Bury, Belgium. He served as Belgian Consul for the Province of New Brunswick and Consular Agent for France at St. John. He served as a member of the Town Council of Portland.[7]
Literature
Military service
4237 Dr. Adrian Preston & Peter Dennis (Edited) Swords and Covenants Rowman And Littlefield, London. Croom Helm. 1976.
H16511 Dr. Richard Arthur Preston To Serve Canada: A History of the Royal Military College of Canada 1997 Toronto, University of Toronto Press, 1969.
H16511 Dr. Richard Arthur Preston Canada's RMC - A History of Royal Military College Second Edition 1982
H16511 Dr. Richard Preston R.M.C. and Kingston: The effect of imperial and military influences on a Canadian community 1968
H1877 R. Guy C. Smith (editor) As You Were! Ex-Cadets Remember. In 2 Volumes. Volume I: 1876-1918. Volume II: 1919-1984. Royal Military College. [Kingston]. The R.M.C. Club of Canada. 1984
Family
Louis LABARRE, Le Drame du château de Bury, Mons, 1851
Procès du comte et de la comtesse de Bocarmé devant la Cour d'assises du Hainaut (1851), Mons, Leroux, 1851.
Frédéric THOMAS, Petites causes célèbres du jour. Tome 12, 1855
Pierre BOUCHARDON, Le crime du château de Bitremont, Paris, A. Michel, 1925,
Henry SOUMAGNE, Le Seigneur de Bury, Brussels, Larcier, 1946.
Alfred GALLEZ, Le sire de Bitremont, affaire de Bocarmé, Brussels, P. de Méyère, 1959.
Oscar COOMANS DE BRACHÈNE, État présent de la noblesse belge, Annuaire 2000, Brussels, 2000
Robert WENNIG, Back to the roots of modern analytical toxicology: Jean Servais Stas and the Bocarmé murder case, in: Drug Test Anal, John Wiley & Sons, April 2009.
Douglas DE CONINCK, Visart de Bocarmé, in: De Morgen, 14 januari 2012.
^Whitehall, 19 November 1910.
"The King has been pleased to give and grant unto Henry Robert Visart de Bury, Esquire, Captain in His Majesty's Royal Regiment of Artillery, eldest son and heir of Robert Gonzalès Dieudonné Ferdinand Visart, Count Visart de Bury and de Bocarmé, who was eldest surviving son and heir of Alfred Julien Gabriel Hippolyte Visart de Bury and de Bocarmé, who was eldest son of Marie Philippe Joseph Julien Visart Count Visart de Bury and de Bocarmé sometime Governor of the Island of Java, son of Marie Dieudonné Louis Joseph Gustave Visart, Count Visart de Bury and de Bocarmé, son of Louis François Visart Count de Bury and de Bocarmé all deceased, His Royal Licence and Authority that he and the heirs male of his body in succession (being respectively subjects of His Majesty's Realms) upon whom the title of Count de Bury and de Bocarmé shall descend may bear and use the said title of Count in this Country in the manner declared in the Letters Patent or Diploma granted by Her Majesty the Empress Maria Thérèse to the said Louis François Visart and bearing date the fifth day of September, One thousand seven hundred and fifty-three. And to Command that the said Royal concession and especial mark of Royal favour together with the said Letters Patent or Diploma be registered in the College of Arms." http://www.visart.be/robert_son_histoire.htm LG 13 Dec 1910, issue 28446 p.1.