1853 in Belgium

Events in the year 1853 in Belgium.

Incumbents

 * Monarch: Leopold I
 * Head of government: Henri de Brouckère

Events

 * 9 April – Prince Leopold sworn in as a member of the Belgian Senate.
 * 9 June – Aalst railway station opens.
 * 22 August – Marriage of Leopold, Duke of Brabant, heir to the Belgian throne, and Marie Henriette of Austria.
 * 23 August – International Maritime Conference opens in Brussels under the chairmanship of Adolphe Quetelet and at the instigation of Matthew Fontaine Maury (ends 8 September)
 * 19 September – First International Statistical Congress opens in Brussels under the chairmanship of Adolphe Quetelet.

Publications

 * Periodicals
 * Almanach royal officiel (Brussels, H. Tarlier)
 * Annales de pomologie belge et étrangère (Commission Royale de Pomologie) begins publication.
 * Annuaire de la noblesse de Belgique, vol. 5, edited by Isidore de Stein d'Altenstein
 * La Belgique Horticole, vol. 3.
 * Bulletins de l'Académie Royale des Sciences, des Lettres et des Beaux-Arts de Belgique, vol. 20 (Brussels, M. Hayez)
 * Recueil des pièces imprimées par ordre de la Chambre des Représentants, vol. 3.


 * Guidebooks and directories
 * Bradshaw's illustrated hand-book for travellers in Belgium, on the Rhine, and through portions of Rhenish Prussia (London, W.J. Adams)
 * Francis Coghlan, The Miniature Guide to the Rhine through Belgium and Holland (London, J. Onwhyn)

Art and architecture

 * Buildings
 * Aalst railway station


 * Paintings
 * Henri Leys, Frans Floris Going to a Saint Luke's Day Feast 1540
 * Charles Verlat, Buffalo Ambushed by a Tiger
 * Antoine Wiertz, Hunger, Madness and Crime

Births

 * 31 January – Marie-Elisabeth Belpaire, Flemish activist (died 1948)
 * 14 February – Jan Van Rijswijck, politician (died 1906)
 * 20 December – Marie Parent, feminist (died 1934)

Deaths

 * 11 January – Floris Nollet (born 1794), engineer
 * 18 January – Antoine Payen the Younger (born 1792), painter
 * 12 February – Joseph Van Hoorde (born 1818), horticulturalist
 * 5 March — Hirsch Sommerhausen (born 1781), educator and translator
 * 30 April – Edouard Mary (born 1796), social reformer
 * 3 December – Lazare Richtenberger (born 1792), banker