1856 in Belgium
# 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
