← 1855 1854 1853 1856 in Belgium → 1857 1858 1859
Decades:	1830s 1840s 1850s 1860s 1870s
See also:	Other events of 1856 List of years in Belgium

Events in the year 1856 in Belgium.

Monarch: Leopold I

Head of government: Pierre de Decker

• 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

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)

Periodicals

• Almanach royal officiel (Brussels, Tarlier)^[1]
• Annales de pomologie belge et étrangère, vol. 4.^[2][3]
• Annuaire de la noblesse de Belgique, vol. 10, edited by Isidore de Stein d'Altenstein^[4]
• Annuaire statistique et historique belge, vol. 3, edited by Auguste Scheler^[5]
• Annuaire de l'Académie royale de Belgique, vol. 22^[6]
• La Belgique, 2^[7]
• La Belgique Horticole, vol. 6.^[8]
• Bulletin de la Société de médecine de Gand, vol. 23 (Ghent, Leonard Hebbelynck)^[9]
• Collection de précis historiques, vol. 5, edited by Edouard Terwecoren S.J.^[10]
• Journal de l'armée belge^[11]
• Journal d'horticulture pratique de la Belgique^[12]

Official reports and monographs

• Recueil consulaire contenant les rapports commerciaux^[13]
• Recueil des lois et arrêtés royaux de la Belgique, vol. 8^[14]
• Joseph Jean De Smet (ed.), Recueil des chroniques de Flandre, vol. 3 (Brussels, Commission royale d'Histoire)^[15]
• François Joseph Ferdinand Marchal and Edmond Marchal, Histoire politique du règne de l'empereur Charles-Quint (Brussels, H. Tarlier)^[16]
• Jean-Joseph Thonissen, La Belgique sous le règne de Léopold I, vol. 2 (Liège, J.-G. Lardinois)^[17]

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)^[18]

• 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)

• 7 March – Alphonse de Woelmont (born 1799), politician
• 22 November – Albert Prisse (born 1788), diplomat
• 28 December – Auguste Drapiez (born 1778), naturalist