1870 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.


 * May
 * 23 May – Provincial elections


 * June
 * 3 June – new conscription law, expanding numbers but retaining selection by lottery.
 * 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.
 * 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.
 * 11 August – France and Prussia give assurances to Britain that Belgian neutrality will be respected during the Franco-Prussian War.


 * September
 * 2 September – Belgian Red Cross despatches medical units to Lorraine in the wake of the Battle of Sedan.
 * 23 September – Sumptuous public celebration of the 40th anniversary of Belgian independence.

Publications

 * Periodicals
 * Almanach royal officiel (Brussels, E. Guyot)
 * Annuaire statistique de la Belgique begins publication (Brussels, Imprimerie de Delevingne et Callewaert)
 * L'Illustration Européenne begins publication (Brussels, Bureaux de l'Administration)


 * 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)
 * Prosper de Haulleville, De l'enseignement primaire en Belgique
 * Prosper de Haulleville, La Nationalité belge; ou Flamands et Wallons
 * 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.)
 * François Merten, Géographie industrielle et commerciale de la Belgique (Ghent, H. Hoste)
 * 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

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