# 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.$^{:690}$
* 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.$^{:690}$
* 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.$^{:690}$
* 11 August – France and Prussia give assurances to Britain that Belgian neutrality will be respected during the Franco-Prussian War.$^{:690}$

### September

* 2 September – Belgian Red Cross despatches medical units to Lorraine in the wake of the Battle of Sedan.$^{:690}$
* 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$^{:690}$

## 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