Émile Banning
Émile Theodore Joseph Hubert Banning (12 October 1836 – 13 July 1898) was a doctor of philosophy and literature and a Belgian senior civil servant who played an important role in the Belgian politics of the 19th century. Born in Liège, Banning started his career as a journalist with the l'Écho du Parlement, where he became an observer of the political life, after a stay at the Royal Library as its archivist and librarian, he was appointed to the department of Foreign Affairs where he quickly became a kind of oracle in all the historical and geographical questions of his time.