1870 in Belgium

← 1869 1868 1867 1870 in Belgium → 1871 1872 1873
Decades:	1850s 1860s 1870s 1880s 1890s
See also:	Other events of 1870 List of years in Belgium

Events in the year 1870 in Belgium.

Incumbents

Monarch: Leopold II

Head of government: Walthère Frère-Orban (to 16 June); Jules d'Anethan (from 2 July)

Events

March

• 4 March – Law on Temporalities establishes state oversight of parish finances.

June

• 3 June – new conscription law, expanding numbers but retaining selection by lottery.[1]^:690
• 11 June – Partial legislative elections of 1870 return a hung parliament
• 16 June – Walthère Frère-Orban resigns as Prime Minister
• 18 June – Affligem Abbey, closed in 1796, refounded.

July

• 2 July – Jules d'Anethan replaces Walthère Frère-Orban as Prime Minister
• 13 July – Liberal Party conference in Brussels draws up new party programme.[1]^:690
• 15 July – General mobilisation in response to the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War

August

• 2 August – General election, to break impasse of hung parliament, returns Catholic Party majority.[1]^:690
• 11 August – France and Prussia give assurances to Britain that Belgian neutrality will be respected during the Franco-Prussian War.[1]^:690

September

• 2 September – Belgian Red Cross despatches medical units to Lorraine in the wake of the Battle of Sedan.[1]^:690
• 23 September – Sumptuous public celebration of the 40th anniversary of Belgian independence.[2]

Publications

Periodicals

• Almanach royal officiel (Brussels, E. Guyot)[3]
• Annuaire statistique de la Belgique begins publication (Brussels, Imprimerie de Delevingne et Callewaert)[4]
• L'Illustration Européenne begins publication (Brussels, Bureaux de l'Administration)[5]

Official studies and reports

• Épidémie typhoïde de 1869 (Brussels), report of the commission of inquiry into the 1869 epidemic of typhoid fever

Books

• Émile de Borchgrave, Histoire des rapports de droit public qui existèrent entre les provinces belges et l'Empire d'Allemagne depuis le démembrement de la monarchie carolingienne jusqu'à l'incorporation de la Belgique à la République française (Brussels, 1870)[6]
• Prosper de Haulleville, De l'enseignement primaire en Belgique[7]
• Prosper de Haulleville, La Nationalité belge; ou Flamands et Wallons[8]
• Émile de Laveleye, La Russie et l'Autriche depuis Sadowa
• Émile de Laveleye, "Land System of Belgium and Holland", in Systems of Land Tenure in Various Countries (London, Macmillan & Co.)[9]
• François Merten, Géographie industrielle et commerciale de la Belgique (Ghent, H. Hoste)[10]
• Adolphe Quetelet, Anthropométrie, ou Mesure des différentes facultés de l'homme (Brussels, Leipzig and Ghent)

Science

• Botanical Garden of Brussels (founded 1826) bought by the Belgian state.

Art and architecture

• Prix de Rome: Xavier Mellery
• 22 March – La Monnaie in Brussels stages first performance in French of Richard Wagner's Lohengrin[1]^:690

Births

• 4 February – Raoul Warocqué, politician (died 1917)
• 28 March – Adolphe De Meulemeester, colonial official (died 1944)
• 7 April – Joseph Ryelandt, composer and musicologist (died 1965)
• 13 June – Jules Bordet, Nobel prize-winning microbiologist (died 1961)
• 28 July – Henri Jaspar, politician (died 1939)
• 24 October – Charles Saroléa, philologist (died 1953)
• 30 November – Princess Henriette of Belgium (died 1948) and Princess Joséphine Marie of Belgium (died 1871)

Deaths

• 30 March – Charles de Groux (born 1825), painter
• 8 April – Charles Auguste de Bériot (born 1802), composer
• 6 June – Henri Adolphe Schaep (born 1826), painter
• 18 July – Jean Théodore Lacordaire (born 1801), entomologist

References

1. Alain de Gueldre et al., Kroniek van België (Antwerp and Zaventem, 1987).
2. Joseph Irving, The Annals of Our Time (London and New York, 1871), p. 949.
3. On Google Books
4. Online
5. Vol. 1 on Google Books
6. On Google Books
7. https://books.google.com/books?id=lxRCAAAAcAAJ
8. https://books.google.com/books?id=FWdDAAAAcAAJ
9. https://archive.org/stream/cu31924021470202#page/n243/mode/2up
10. https://books.google.com/books?id=Z8RSAAAAcAAJ