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.Alain de Gueldre et al., Kroniek van België (Antwerp and Zaventem, 1987). 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.Joseph Irving, The Annals of Our Time (London and New York, 1871), p. 949.
Publications Periodicals Almanach royal officiel (Brussels, E. Guyot)On Google Books Annuaire statistique de la Belgique begins publication (Brussels, Imprimerie de Delevingne et Callewaert)Online L'Illustration Européenne begins publication (Brussels, Bureaux de l'Administration)Vol. 1 on Google Books
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. Prosper de Haulleville, De l'enseignement primaire en Belgique. Prosper de Haulleville, La Nationalité belge; ou Flamands et Wallons Joseph Kervyn de Lettenhove, Chroniques relatives à l'histoire de la Belgique sous la domination des ducs de Bourgogne, vol. 1. 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) 20 September – Paul Peeters, Jesuit (died 1950) 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