1831 in Belgium

← 1830 1829 1828 1831 in Belgium → 1832 1833 1834
Decades:	1830s 1840s 1850s
See also:	Other events of 1831 List of years in Belgium

Events in the year 1831 in Belgium.

Incumbents

Gustave Wappers, The Swearing in of Leopold I

Monarch – Leopold I (from 21 July)

Head of government – Etienne Constantin de Gerlache (27 February–10 March), Joseph Lebeau (10 March–24 July), Félix de Muelenaere (from 24 July)

Events

February

• 3 February – Prince Louis, Duke of Nemours, elected king of the Belgians but declined the honour.
• 5 February – Jan van Speyk explodes his gunboat in the port of Antwerp
• 7 February – National Congress approves the Constitution of Belgium
• 27 February – Etienne Constantin de Gerlache takes office as head of government

March

• 10 March – Joseph Lebeau replaces Etienne Constantin de Gerlache as head of government

June

• 26 June – At the Conference of London the five great powers (Austria, Britain, France, Prussia, Russia) finalise the Treaty of the Eighteen Articles, an unsuccessful peace proposal for Belgium and the Netherlands

July

• 12 July – Leopold, Prince of Coburg, elected king of the Belgians.
• 19 July – Leopold arrives in Brussels.
• 21 July – Leopold sworn in as King of the Belgians.
• 24 July – Félix de Muelenaere replaces Joseph Lebeau as head of government

August

• 2–12 August – Ten Days' Campaign – Dutch attempt to re-establish rule over Belgium fails, but Dutch forces retain control of Antwerp Citadel.
  • 8 August – Battle of Hasselt
  • 12 August – Battle of Leuven
• 29 August – Belgian general election, 1831, first elections for the Belgian Parliament

Publications

• Almanach de poche de Bruxelles (Brussels, M.-E. Rampelbergh)
• Joseph Jean De Smet, Nouvelle géographie, second edition (Ghent, Vanryckgem-Hovaere)
• Auguste Voisin, Guide des voyageurs dans la ville de Gand, ou Notice historique sur cette ville, ses monumens, ses institutions, sa statistique, etc. (Ghent, Louis De Busscher)

Births

• 11 April – Euphrosine Beernaert, landscape painter (died 1901)
• 12 April – Constantin Meunier, painter and sculptor (died 1905)
• 25 April – Edmond Reusens, archaeologist (died 1903)
• 30 May – Louis Roersch, philologist (died 1891)
• 8 July – Antoine-Félix Bouré, monumental sculptor (died 1883)
• 29 July – Léopold Harzé, sculptor (died 1893)
• 26 September – François-Joseph Scohy, archaeologist (died 1881)
• 30 September – Joseph Delboeuf, psychologist (died 1896)

Deaths

François de Méan

• 15 January – François de Méan (born 1756), archbishop of Mechelen
• 27 March – Jean Kickx (born 1775), botanist and mineralogist
• 5 April – Pierre Léonard Vander Linden (born 1797), entomologist
• 21 November – Marie Anne Simonis (born 1758), industrialist