title: 1897 in Belgium
text: # 1897 in Belgium
  
  Events in the year 1897 in Belgium.
  
  ## Incumbents
  
  * Monarch: Leopold II
  * Prime Minister: Paul de Smet de Naeyer
  
  ## Events
  
  * 10 May – Brussels International Exposition opens
  * 28 July – Prime Minister of the United Kingdom gives notification of his country's intention to withdraw from the Anglo-Belgian Treaty of Commerce and Navigation (1862), to come into effect one year later.
  * 16 August – Belgian Antarctic Expedition sets sail from Antwerp
  * 8 November – Brussels International Exposition closes
  * 16 December – Charles-Gustave Walravens appointed bishop of Tournai
  
  ## Publications
  
  ### Exhibitions
  
  * Camille Lemonnier, Alphonse Wauters, and Armand Heins, Le Palais de la ville de Bruxelles à l'Exposition universelle de 1897
  
  ### Books
  
  * Biographie Nationale de Belgique, vol. 14.
  * Grant Allen, Cities of Belgium (London, G. Richards)
  * Guido Gezelle, Rijmsnoer
  * Gustave Kahn, Limbes de lumières, illustrated by Georges Lemmen (Brussels, Edmond Deman)
  * Désiré-Joseph Mercier, Les Origines de la psychologie contemporaine
  * Emile Vandervelde, Le question agraire en Belgique
  
  ## Births
  
  * 1 January – Albert De Vleeschauwer, politician (died 1971)
  * 24 January – Fernand Ledoux, actor (died 1994)
  * 29 January – Honoré Vlamynck, footballer (died 1974)
  * 11 April – Paul Graeffe, bobsledder (died 1957)
  * 7 May – Marcel Maas, pianist (died 1950)
  * 11 May – Joris Minne, artist (died 1988)
  * 2 June – Léon Trulin, intelligence agent (died 1915)
  * 8 June – Domien Jacob, gymnast (died 1984)
  * 19 June – Ernest Casimir-Lambert, bobsledder (died 1931)
  * 1 August – Camil Van Hulse, pianist (died 1988)
  * 25 August – Léoncé Oleffe, athlete (died 1972)
  * 12 September – Albert Wyckmans, cyclist (died 1995)
  * 4 November – Paul Finet, politician (died 1965)
  * 5 November – Paul Kronacker, politician (died 1994)
  * 24 November
     * Lode Craeybeckx, politician (died 1976)
     * Pierre Devaux, athlete (died 1984)
  * 5 December – Gust De Muynck, broadcaster (died 1986)
  * 18 December – Fernand Collin, banker (died 1990)
  
  ## Deaths
  
  * 13 February – Gustave Den Duyts (born 1850), artist
  * 1 March – Jules de Burlet (born 1844), politician
  * 12 July – Félix Godefroid (born 1818), harpist
  * 23 September – Isidore-Joseph du Rousseaux (born 1826), bishop of Tournai
  * 22 November – Frans Verhas (born 1827), painter
  