1861 births

Gustave Émile Haug (19 June 1861 - 28 August 1927) was a French geologist and paleontologist known for his contribution to the geosyncline theory.

Maurice Théodore Adolphe Hamy (31 October 1861, Boulogne-sur-Mer – 9 April 1936, Paris) was a French astronomer.
He obtained in 1887 a doctorate from the Faculté des sciences de Paris with dissertation Étude sur la figure des corps célestes. In the 1890s he applied his method of interference fringes to an analysis of errors made in astronomical observations using meridian circles. He used his interference method to confirm Barnard's measurement of the apparent diameter of Venus. Hamy participated in the creation of l'Institut d'optique théorique et appliquée (SupOptique).
He won the prix Lalande in 1895. Filling the empty chair created by the death of Jules Janssen, Hamy was elected in 1908 a member of l'Académie des sciences and then in 1928 its president. He was also elected a member of the Bureau des longitudes.
He is a nephew of Ernest Hamy.

Pierre Delbet (15 November 1861 – 17 July 1957) was a French surgeon born in La Ferté-Gaucher.

Ursmer Berlière, born Alfred Berlière (1861–1932) was a monk of Maredsous Abbey and a monastic historian whose bibliography ran to 360 publications.

Friedrich Simon Archenhold (2 October 1861 in Lichtenau, Kingdom of Prussia – 14 October 1939 in Berlin) was an astronomer who founded the Treptow Observatory (today the Archenhold Observatory) in Berlin-Treptow. He graduated from the Realgymnasium in Lippstadt before entering Friedrich Wilhelm University in 1882, where he and Wilhelm Förster founded the Urania Society at the Berlin University Observatory.

Marius Ely Joseph Sestier (8 September 1861 – 8 November 1928) was a French cinematographer. Sestier was best known for his work in Australia, where he shot some of the country's first films.
Born in Sauzet, Drôme, Sestier was a pharmacist by profession. He was employed by early filmmakers the Lumière brothers (Auguste and Louis Lumière) to demonstrate their cinématographe abroad. In this capacity he travelled to India in June 1896, where he held a showcase of six short films made by the Lumière brothers at Watson's Hotel, Bombay on 7 July 1896; this was the first time moving pictures had been shown in India. Sestier also shot his own films while in Bombay, but the Lumière brothers rejected these for their catalogue as they were not satisfied with the quality as French customs had opened the package of undeveloped film.After Sestier completed his work in India he travelled to Sydney where he met with Australian photographer Henry Walter Barnett, who had darkroom facilities to develop films locally.In September 1896 Sestier, Barnett and Charles Westmacott opened Australia's first cinema, the Salon Lumière in Pitt Street, Sydney. Sestier and Barnett began making their own films, starting with a short film of passengers disembarking from the ship PS Brighton in Manly, which was the first film shot and screened in Australia. Sestier and Barnett made approximately 19 films together in Sydney and Melbourne, most notably a film of the 1896 Melbourne Cup horse race. The feature, which consisted of 10 one-minute films shown in chronological order (separate films were required due to limitations of cameras of the time), was premiered at the Princess Theatre, Melbourne on 19 November 1896, with Sestier giving an accompanying lecture. It was covered in the Australian press, including The Age and The Bulletin, and has been cited as Australia's first film production.After his business partnership with Barnett ended Sestier continued to tour Australia, demonstrating the cinématographe and showcasing films until May 1897. After returning to France he went on to become director of the Lumière Patents Company.

Gaston Dubosc (1861–1941) was a French stage and film actor.

Floris Hendrik Verster (9 June 1861 – 21 January 1927) was a Dutch painter.

Elisabeth von Heyking (10 December 1861 – 4 January 1925) was a German novelist, travel writer and diarist. She is known for her best-selling 1903 novel Briefe, die ihn nicht erreichten (Letters Which Never Reached Him) and her travel diaries, published posthumously in 1926.

Louis Émile Anquetin (26 January 1861 – 19 August 1932) was a French painter.