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François de Selys Longchamps

1910–1983

Born
2 Apr 1910, Waremme
Country of birth
Belgium
Died
23 Oct 1983
facts
5
sources
1
images and files
0

Facts and their sources

Tap a fact to see where it comes from.

  • Birth2 Apr 1910, WaremmeProbable1 source
  • Death23 Oct 1983Probable1 source

A life in time

  1. Born · Waremme

    Birth, Waremme

  2. Child born: Baroness Sybille de Selys-Longchamps

    Birth, Uccle

  3. Died

    Death

What was it like?

The world around Waremme, 1910: who ruled, who else was alive, how people lived. This is general history, not a record about the family, and every item shows where it comes from.

François was born the same year as Mother Teresa, Akira Kurosawa, and Jacques Cousteau.

Born the same year

  • Mother Teresa

    Albanian-Indian Catholic nun and missionary (1910–1997)

  • Akira Kurosawa

    Japanese filmmaker (1910–1998)

  • Jacques Cousteau

    French naval officer, oceanographer, filmmaker and author (1910-1997)

  • Giuseppe Meazza

    Italian association football player and manager (1910-1979)

  • Dorothy Hodgkin

    British chemist

  • Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar

    Indian-American astrophysicist

Fashion

First Communion Fashion Constraints

For a girl's First Communion, mothers pressured shopkeepers to pull corsets tighter to make her waist look as slender as possible. Girls also wore tight new shoes to make their feet appear smaller.

Sunday Best in Rural Flanders

Rural Flemish men often wore a shiny blue blouse called a kiel for their Sunday best, while women donned traditional regional caps.

Music
Around 1919–1939

Dancing and social life for youth

Young people often went dancing at age 16 or 17, and many young women relied on partners to pay for drinks because they only had about 10 francs in pocket money.

Around 1920–1939

The rise of jazz culture

Jazz became a major craze in the 1920s and 1930s, with Belgian cities hosting their first jazz concerts and tournaments for amateur dance orchestras.

Getting around
Around 1900–1905

Long Commutes for Industrial Workers

Around 1900, one in five Belgian industrial workers used cheap weekly train passes, sometimes commuting up to three hours each way to work.

Around 1900–1900

Extensive Steam Tram Network in 1900

In 1900, the Belgian steam tram network was highly extensive, with fares as low as five or seven centimes per kilometer.

Daily life

Home life without electricity

Houses were dark, relied on coal stoves for warmth and cooking, and lacked electricity until around 1904-1912. People often used portable lamps or gas burners for light, and coal was delivered through cellar vents.

Manual labor and domestic education

Housework was labor-intensive, with simple meals taking hours to prepare, often involving grinding coffee by hand. Household schools were established to teach young girls domestic skills like bread baking and preparing meals.

Food
Around 1900–1905

Rising sugar consumption

Between 1900 and 1905, the annual average sugar consumption per capita in Belgium doubled from 5 to 10 kilograms as prices dropped.

Prices and wages
Around 1914–1914

Food prices in 1914 Belgium

In 1914, a kilogram of bread cost 0.35 francs, while a kilogram of beef was 1.80 francs.

Around 1914–1918

Wartime purchasing power collapse

During World War I, purchasing power plummeted, and by 1918, workers in Brussels had only 25 percent of their 1914 purchasing power.

Work

Apprentice and cleaning wages in Brussels

A typographer's daughter in apprenticeship earned 25 centimes per day, while a cleaning woman hired for half a day on Saturday was paid 3 francs.

Cost of beer in workers' taverns

Beer was a staple for workers, sold in taverns for 12 centimes per glass (3-4 deciliters) or 24 centimes per liter from the barrel.

News and letters

Dedicated Belgian postmen found recipients easily

Belgian postmen were exceptionally dedicated, often delivering letters addressed only with a person's name and the city, such as "Brussels," by using police registries to locate the recipient.

Tipping customs for Belgian postmen

It was customary to give the postman a small tip of three or four sous for delivering registered letters, and they received small gifts during the New Year.

During their lifetime

  1. 1919

    Universal male suffrage introduced

    On April 10, 1919, Parliament approved a bill introducing universal male suffrage at age 21.

  2. 1919

    Vandervelde anti-alcohol law enacted

    On September 28, 1919, the Vandervelde Law came into effect, which banned the sale of spirits in bars to suppress alcoholism.

  3. 1935

    First electric railway line opened

    On May 5, 1935, the national railway company opened Belgium's first electric line between Brussels-Nord and Antwerp-Central.

  4. 1944

    Operation Gutt currency reform

    Following the liberation of Brussels in October 1944, the government carried out Operation Gutt to exchange existing banknotes and curb post-war inflation.

  5. 1956

    First nuclear chain reaction achieved in Belgium

    Belgium successfully achieved its first controlled nuclear chain reaction at the BR 1 research reactor in Mol.

  6. 1958

    Brussels hosts World Fair Expo 58

    The World Fair in Brussels, Expo 58, modernized the country and introduced citizens to a new era of global possibilities.

Family

Children

Ancestors and children

Open the full tree

Four generations back to the right, the children to the left. The number beside a child counts the generations of descendants known after them.