← 1860 1859 1858 1861 in Belgium → 1862 1863 1864
Decades:	1840s 1850s 1860s 1870s 1880s
See also:	Other events of 1861 List of years in Belgium

Events in the year 1861 in Belgium.

Incumbents

Monarchy of Belgium: Leopold I

Head of government: Charles Rogier

Events

January

• 1 January – Franco-Belgian Tirailleurs renamed Papal Zouaves.^[1]

February

• 7 February – François Robyn (Br Hugo in religion) sentenced to death at the Court of assizes in Mons for arson at Scourmont Priory the previous October.^[2]

May

• 1 May – Commercial treaty with France modelled on the Anglo-French commercial treaty of 1860.^[3]
• 19 May – Association "Vlamingen Vooruit!" organises mass meeting in Brussels^[4]
• 27 May – Commercial treaty with France ratified.

June

• 1 June – Commercial treaty with France comes into effect.
• 11 June – Partial legislative elections of 1861

July

• 20 July – Signing of Treaty of Amity, Commerce and Navigation between Belgium and Mexico negotiated by Auguste t'Kint.^[5]

October

• 1 October – Commercial treaty between Britain, France and Belgium comes into effect.^[6]
• 10 October – Commercial treaty with the Ottoman Empire signed at Constantinople by Gaston Errembault de Dudzeele for Belgium and by Esad Safvet and Mohammed Djemil for the Sublime Porte.^[7]

Publications

Periodicals

• Annuaire de l'Académie Royale des Sciences, des Lettres et des Beaux-Arts de Belgique, 27 ^[8]
• La Belgique Horticole, vol. 11.^[9]
• Bulletin de la Fédération des Sociétés d'Horticulture^[10]
• Bulletin Usuel des Lois et Arrêtés, 1539–1813 (Brussels)^[11]
• Collection de précis historiques, vol. 10, edited by Edouard Terwecoren S.J.^[12]
• La Tribune du peuple (Brussels) begins publication
• Revue belge et étrangère, 12^[13]
• Het Vlaemsch Verbond begins publication^[4]

Reports and pamphlets

• Bulletin administratif du Ministère de l'Intérieur, series 1 (1830–1847), vol. 1 (1830-1831).^[14]
• Recueil des lois et arrêtés royaux de Belgique, vol. 48 (Brussels, Imprimerie du Moniteur Belge)^[15][16]
• Charles Le Hardy de Beaulieu, L'Espagne et son avenir commercial: Des relations à créer entre la Belgique et l'Espagne (Brussels: A. Lacroix, Verboeckhoven et Cie.)

Literary and historical writing

• Adolphe Borgnet, Histoire des Belges à la fin du XVIIIe siècle^[17]
• Charles De Coster, Contes brabançons
• Gustave Oppelt, Histoire générale et chronologique de la Belgique, de 1830 à 1860 (Brussels, M. Hayez)^[18]
• Auguste Scheler, Trente années de la littérature belge (Brussels: Aug. Schnée)^[19]
• William Henry James Weale, Notes sur Jean van Eyck (Brussels: A. Lacroix, Verboeckhoven et Cie; London: Barthes & Lowell)

Music

• Barthélemy-Antoine Bauwens, Le plain-chant mis à la portée de tout le monde (Paris and Brussels: Casterman)
• Henri Vieuxtemps, Violin Concerto No. 5

Births

• Elisabeth Wesmael, graphic artist (died 1953)
• 6 January – Victor Horta, architect (died 1947)
• 11 March – Francis Dhanis, colonial administrator (died 1909)
• 2 April – Ernest van Dyck, singer (died 1923)
• 20 April – Arthur Van Gehuchten, anatomist (died 1914)
• 5 July – Fernand Cocq, politician (died 1940)
• 12 July – Eugène Broerman, painter (died 1932)
• 13 August – Fernand Brouez, magazine publisher (died 1900)
• 16 August – Diana Coomans, painter (died 1952)
• 27 August – Aloïs de Beule, sculptor (died 1935)
• 1 September – Louis Bernheim, general (died 1931)
• 3 September – Ursmer Berlière, historian (died 1932)
• 9 October – Henri Privat-Livemont, artist (died 1936)
• 21 October – Charles van Lerberghe, poet (died 1907)
• 3 November – Louis Ruquoy, soldier (died 1937)
• 6 November – Germain Morin, patrologist (died 1946)
• 10 December – Guillaume Van Strydonck, painter (died 1937)

Deaths

• 5 April – Ferdinand de Meeûs (born 1798), politician
• 8 April – Édouard Wacken (born 1819), poet and dramatist
• 24 September – Michael Joseph François Scheidweiler (born 1799), horticulturalist
• 27 October – Marcellin Jobard (born 1792), photographer
• 3 December – Henry Voordecker (born 1779), painter
• 25 December – Jacobus Josephus Eeckhout (born 1793), painter