1856 in Belgium

Events in the year 1856 in Belgium.

Incumbents

 * Monarch: Leopold I
 * Head of government: Pierre de Decker

Events

 * 1 May – Railway line between Brussels and Ghent completed
 * 26 May – Provincial elections
 * 10 June – Partial legislative elections return a Catholic majority
 * 27 June – Royal order institutes a committee to examine Flemish language grievances.
 * 21-23 July – Celebration of the jubilee of Leopold I's swearing-in as monarch

Art and architecture

 * Paintings
 * Charles de Groux, Pilgrimage of St Guido of Anderlecht
 * Basile de Loose, The Happy Family
 * Charles Leickert, Urban Landscape
 * Henri Adolphe Schaep, Working in the Docks at Night
 * Adolphe Stache, Elegant Company
 * Charles-Philogène Tschaggeny, The Unwilling Traveller
 * Antoine Wiertz, Coquette Dress (The Devil's Mirror)

Publications

 * Periodicals
 * Almanach royal officiel (Brussels, Tarlier)
 * Annales de pomologie belge et étrangère, vol. 4.
 * Annuaire de la noblesse de Belgique, vol. 10, edited by Isidore de Stein d'Altenstein
 * Annuaire statistique et historique belge, vol. 3, edited by Auguste Scheler
 * Annuaire de l'Académie royale de Belgique, vol. 22
 * La Belgique, 2
 * La Belgique Horticole, vol. 6.
 * Bulletin de la Société de médecine de Gand, vol. 23 (Ghent, Leonard Hebbelynck)
 * Collection de précis historiques, vol. 5, edited by Edouard Terwecoren S.J.
 * Journal de l'armée belge
 * Journal d'horticulture pratique de la Belgique


 * Official reports and monographs
 * Recueil consulaire contenant les rapports commerciaux
 * Recueil des lois et arrêtés royaux de la Belgique, vol. 8
 * Joseph Jean De Smet (ed.), Recueil des chroniques de Flandre, vol. 3 (Brussels, Commission royale d'Histoire)
 * François Joseph Ferdinand Marchal and Edmond Marchal, Histoire politique du règne de l'empereur Charles-Quint (Brussels, H. Tarlier)
 * Jean-Joseph Thonissen, La Belgique sous le règne de Léopold I, vol. 2 (Liège, J.-G. Lardinois)


 * 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)

Births

 * 5 January – Omer Bodson, soldier (died 1891)
 * 15 January – Paul de Favereau, politician (died 1922)
 * 28 January – Eva Dell'Acqua, composer (died 1930)
 * 5 February – Thomas Louis Heylen, bishop (died 1941)
 * 6 February – Gerard Portielje, painter (died 1929)
 * 17 February – Joseph Boex, author (died 1940)
 * 11 April – Constant Lievens, Jesuit (died 1893)
 * 9 June – Auguste de Bavay, brewer (died 1944)
 * 12 June – Octave Maus, lawyer (died 1919)
 * 18 June – Edward Génicot, Jesuit (died 1900)
 * 26 July – Edward Anseele, politician (died 1938)
 * 1 August – Frans Hens, artist (died 1928)
 * 26 August – Léon Frédéric, painter (died 1940)
 * 9 October – Sylvain Dupuis, composer (died 1931)
 * 27 October – Albrecht Rodenbach, poet (died 1880)
 * 28 December – Henri de Merode-Westerloo, politician (died 1908)

Deaths

 * 7 March – Alphonse de Woelmont (born 1799), politician
 * 22 November – Albert Prisse (born 1788), diplomat
 * 28 December – Auguste Drapiez (born 1778), naturalist