Frans Jozef Peter van den Branden

van den Branden (14 June 1837 – 22 March 1922) was a Belgian playwright, art historian, civil servant, educator and archivist.

He also co-authored the Biographisch woordenboek der Noord- en Zuidnederlandsche letterkunde with Johannes Godefridus Frederiks, a biographical dictionary of writers from the Netherlands and Belgium and their predecessor states.

He was also a secretary of De Olijftak, a chamber of rhetoric that traced its history back to the early 16th century in Antwerp.

In his comic one-act play 'with singing' with the title Spiritisme (Spiritism), which was performed by the Nationaal Theater (National Theatre) in 1864, he poked fun at the phenomenon of the proliferation of spiritist groups in Antwerp.

[3] From 1865 onwards he taught Dutch diction at the city's music school.