Alfred Claeys-Boúúaert (senator)
Alfred Louis Fernand Ghislain Claeys-Boúúaert (16 May 1844 – 4 March 1936) was a Belgian lawyer and politician. He served as a senator for East Flanders from 1894 to 1921.
He was born in Ghent and studied at Sainte-Barbe College in Ghent, Notre-Dame de la Paix College in Namur, and Ghent University, where he earned a doctorate in Law in 1866. He married Céline De Bruyn and they had five children. In 1888, Alfred and his brother Gustave changed their surname to Claeys-Boúúaert.
As a lawyer, he held important roles in the legal world: he joined the legal council in 1882 and became its secretary, later serving as president in 1892. In 1896 he was elected vice-president of the National Federation of Lawyers.
Claeys-Boúúaert became a senator in 1894 and remained in office until 1921. He helped draft the penal rehabilitation law of 25 April 1896 and a law protecting the pensions of provincial and municipal civil servants from seizure on 20 June 1896. He participated in debates about King Leopold II’s colonial projects. In 1895 he abstained from voting on loans to the Congo Free State because Belgium did not yet have enough information. In 1906 he was part of the Commission des XVII and supported the colonial charter.
He also served as a director of the Compagnie du Lubilash, which worked mainly in agriculture in Kamina Territory. He bought and developed a large château in Mariakerke near Ghent, designed by Joseph Schadde, completing work in 1890–1892.
Alfred Claeys-Boúúaert died in Ghent on 4 March 1936. He received the Order of Leopold II (Officer) and the Order of Saint Alexander (Commander, Bulgaria). A monument to him stands on the church wall in Mariakerke, and his grandson Alfred-Marie Claeys-Boúúaert (1906–1993) later became governor of Ruanda-Urundi. The Claeys-Bouüaert castle stayed in the family until 1971, when it was sold to the Mariakerke municipality.
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 12:35 (CET).