List of people from Brussels

This is a list of notable people from Brussels.

Patroness of Brussels

Political leaders in Brussels

The Belgian Monarchs
Main article: List of Belgian monarchs

The Belgian Monarchs reside in Brussels, the capital of Belgium. They were all born in Brussels (except for Leopold I).

  • Leopold I (1790–1865), the first King of the Belgians
  • Leopold II (1835–1909), the second King of the Belgians
  • Albert I (1875–1934), the third King of the Belgians
  • Leopold III (1901–1983), the fourth King of the Belgians
  • Baudouin (1930–1993), the fifth King of the Belgians
  • Albert II (born 1934; abdicated 2013), the sixth King of the Belgians
  • Philippe (born 1960), the seventh King of the Belgians

Minister-Presidents of Brussels
Main article: Minister-President of the Brussels-Capital Region

Governors of Brussels
  • André Degroeve (1995–1998)
  • Raymonde Dury (1998) (resigned)
  • Véronique Paulus de Châtelet (1998)

Mayors of Brussels
Main article: List of mayors of the City of Brussels

Born in Brussels

Following notable people were born in the area today known as the Brussels-Capital Region.

Royals
  • Mary of Burgundy (1457–1482), Duchess of Burgundy from 1477–1482
  • Charles VII (1697–1745), Holy Roman Emperor
  • Charles Eugene (1728–1793), Duke of Württemberg
  • Princess Joséphine-Charlotte of Belgium (1927–2005), Grand Duchess of Luxembourg
  • Princess Luisa Maria at Clinique Saint Jean in 1995
  • Princess Laetitia Maria at Clinique Saint Jean in 2003

Politicians
  • Paul Deschanel (1855–1922), president of France (1920)
  • Antoine Duquesne (1941–2010), Belgian MP and Senator, Member of the European Parliament
  • Pierre Harmel (1911–2009), Prime Minister of Belgium (1965–1966)
  • Marie Janson (1873–1960), politician
  • Paul-Emile Janson (1872–1944), Prime Minister of Belgium (1937–1938)
  • Philippe Lamberts (born 1963), politician
  • Adolphe Max (1869–1939), politician and Mayor of Brussels from 1909 until 1939
  • Annemie Neyts (born 1944), politician, former president of the Liberal International, president of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party
  • Charles-Ferdinand Nothomb (born 1936), politician
  • Étienne Pinte, French MP and mayor of Versailles
  • Paul-Henri Spaak (1899–1972), Prime Minister of Belgium (1938–1939, 1946 and 1947–1949), President of the United Nations General Assembly (1946–1957), Secretary-General of NATO (1957–1961)
  • Emile Vandervelde (1866–1938), President from 1900 of the Second International

Artists

Cinema

Performance / dance

Music

Painting / sculpture / architecture

Fashion

Literature / cartoon

Scientists

Intellectuals / religion
  • Victor Amédée Jacques Marie Coremans (1802–1872), archivist, journalist, and historian
  • Pieter Crockaert (1470–1514), philosopher and theologian of the Southern Netherlands
  • Henri La Fontaine (1854–1943), lawyer and president of the International Peace Bureau, Nobel Prize for Peace in 1913
  • Patrick Hunout (born 1957), scientist, President and Founder of The Social Capital Foundation
  • Xavier de Mérode (1820–1874), prelate, archbishop and statesman of the Papal states
  • Victor Serge (1890–1947), Russian revolutionary
  • Pascal Vanderveeren (born 1946), lawyer and president of the International Criminal Bar
  • Louise van den Plas (1877–1968), suffragist, activist

Sports

Miscellaneous

Life and work in Brussels

Following notable people lived or worked in Brussels at least during a certain period of their life.

  • Jean Absil (1893–1974 in Brussels), composer, organist, and professor at the Brussels Conservatory
  • Nicolas Ancion (born 1971), writer, lived and worked 1994–2000 in Brussels
  • Henryk Arctowski (1871–1958), scientist and Arctic explorer, worked at the Royal Observatory of Belgium from 1903 to 1909
  • Arno (born 1949), rock artist from Ostend, lived a while in Brussels
  • Maurice Béjart (born 1927), French choreographer; founded the Ballet du XXe Siècle in 1960 and the Mudra School in 1970, both in Brussels
  • Jules Bordet (1870–1961), immunologist and microbiologist; founded the Pasteur Institute in Brussels; inner of the 1919 Nobel Prize in Medicine
  • Jeroen Brouwers (born 1940), Dutch author, lived from 1964 until 1976 in Brussels
  • Pieter Brueghel the Elder (c. 1525–1569), painter
  • Jan Bucquoy (born 1945), filmmaker and director
  • Gerald Bull (1928–1990), Canadian engineer, lived and assassinated in Uccle
  • Hendrik Conscience (1812–1883), writer
  • Alexandra David-Néel (1868–1969), explorer and writer
  • Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker (born 1960), choreographer; founded the dance company Rosas in 1983 and the dance school P.A.R.T.S. in 1995 in Brussels
  • Marc Didden (born 1949) film director, made Brussels By Night (1983)
  • Desiderius Erasmus (c. 1466–1536), humanist and theologian; lived in Anderlecht (Erasmus House) from 31 May until 28 October 1521
  • M. C. Escher (1898–1972), Dutch graphic designer, lived in Uccle from 1937 to 1971
  • François-Joseph Fétis (1784–1871), musicologist, composer, critic and teacher, one of the most influential music critics of the 19th century; became director of the conservatory of Brussels and the chapelmaster of King Leopold I
  • Jan Greshoff (1888–1971), Dutch writer, lived from 1927 until 1939 in Schaerbeek on the August Reyerslaan 130
  • Ania Guédroïtz (born 1949), Belgian actress
  • Willem Frederik Hermans (1921–1995), Dutch author.
  • Victor Horta (1861–1947), architect, one of the most influential European Art Nouveau architects
  • Enver Hoxha (1908–1985), Albanian dictator, worked as secretary at the Albanian consulate in Brussels from 1934 to 1936
  • Nicholas Lens, author, composer
  • René Magritte (1898–1967), surrealist artist
  • Ian McCulloch (born 1959), singer of the English rock band Echo & the Bunnymen
  • Eddy Merckx (born 1945), considered by many to be the greatest cyclist of all-time; spent youth and adolescence in Brussels
  • Jef Mermans (1922–1996), nicknamed "The Bomber", football striker who played much of his career at R.S.C. Anderlecht
  • Eugene Nida (1914–2011), linguist, developer of the dynamic-equivalence Bible-translation theory
  • Amélie Nothomb (born 1967), novelist, writing in French
  • Emma Orczy (1865–1947), Hungarian-British novelist, spent part of her childhood in Brussels (1868 to 1873)
  • Marius Petipa (1818–1910), French ballet choreographer, lived in Brussels from 1824 to 1834 and studied at the Royal Conservatory
  • Ilya Prigogine (1917–2003), physicist and chemist; studied chemistry in Brussels and was appointed in 1959 director of the International Solvay Institute in Brussels; awarded the 1977 Nobel Prize in Chemistry
  • Adolphe Quetelet (1796–1874 in Brussels), astronomer, mathematician, statistician and sociologist; founded and directed the Brussels Observatory; inventor of the body mass index
  • Vini Reilly (Vincent Reilly, born 1953), rock musician, guitarist of the English band The Durutti Column; performed on Morrissey's first solo album in 1988
  • Jan van Ruysbroeck (also known as Jan van den Berghe), architect of the 15th century; amongst his work is the belfry of the Hotel de Ville of Brussels
  • John of Ruysbroeck (or Jan, Jean, Johannes) (c. 1293–1381), 'mystic', priest in Brussels and Groenendaal
  • Jan Zygmunt Skrzynecki (1787–1860), Polish general, high-ranking officer of the Belgian army from 1832 to 1839
  • Ernest Solvay (1838–1922), chemist, industrialist and philanthropist; founded institutes and the Solvay Business School in Brussels
  • Nicolas de Staël (born Nikolai Vladimirovich Stael von Holstein, 1914–1955), Russian-French abstract painter; lived in Uccle from 1922 to the early 1930; studied at the Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts
  • Olivier Strelli (born Nissim Israël, 1946), fashion designer
  • Pieter Coecke van Aelst (1502–1550), painter
  • Rogier van der Weyden (c. 1399–1464), painter
  • Emond van Dynter (c. 1370–1449), writer
  • Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890), Dutch painter, studied at the Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts in Brussels from 1880 to 1881
  • Paul Van Himst (born 1943), nicknamed Polle Gazon, football player, four-times winner of the Belgian Golden Shoe award, eight-times winner of the Belgian championship with R.S.C. Anderlecht
  • Bernaert van Orley (c. 1488–1541), Renaissance painter
  • Johan Verminnen (born 1951), singer-songwriter
  • George Washington (1871–1946), inventor and first commercial producer of instant coffee, grew up in Brussels
  • Henryk Wieniawski (1835–1880), violinist and composer, taught at the Royal Conservatory of Brussels from 1874 to 1877.
  • Antoine Wiertz (1806–1865), painter and sculptor
  • Jan Yoors (1922–1977), Flemish artist, studied at La Cambre from 1941 to 1942

Brussels as a safe harbor

Brussels was known to be a safe harbor for artists and thinkers facing political (or simply criminal) persecution. This was particularly true during the 19th century, although it was a cause of some debate, and policies were prone to change (e.g. the case of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, who were expelled from the city in 1848).

References
  1. Edward de Maesschalck, Marx in Brussel (1845–1848), Leuven, Davidsfonds, 2005, 200 pp., ISBN 978-90-5826-332-2, and recenses on Platform Rosa blog and Vonk Archived 2011-07-16 at the Wayback Machine.
  2. Johanna M. Welcker, Douwes Dekker, Eduard, in Biografisch Woordenboek van het Socialisme en de Arbeidersbeweging in Nederland, 5, pp. 45-58, 1992, of which a slightly adapted version is available on the site of the Biografisch Woordenboek van het Socialisme en de Arbeidersbeweging in Nederland.
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