A Name, a Family
The Michiels family are bell founders based primarily in Tournai and Mechelen (Malines).
In 1886, Edward Michiels, a manufacturer of tower clocks and carillons in Mechelen, acquired Paul Drouot's foundry, located at 51-53 Boulevard du Nord (now Boulevard Eisenhower) in Tournai.
The Belgian foundry's activities ceased when the First World War broke out.
They resumed in 1920, the year Marcel Michiels Jr. (1898-1962) succeeded his father, Marcel Michiels Sr., as head of the foundry.
Marcel Michiels Jr.'s career is quite impressive.
He took courses at the newly established carillon school in Mechelen and completed his bell-founding apprenticeship with Félix Van Aerschot in Leuven.
Marcel Michiels was inundated with orders: carillon after carillon, ringing after ringing. Early bells often featured a simple olive branch motif on the crown. Among the most notable carillon commissions of this period were those for Grimbergen, Harelbeke, Ypres, Dixmude, Charleroi, Verviers, and Thuin.
Between 1923 and 1961, the Michiels foundry supplied over thirty new carillons and produced more than a thousand bells…
