The Last Days of the British Factory at Lisbon

Author:

H. Fulford Williams

Report:

HA 7

Page:

466

Year:

1943

Subject Matter:

Lisbon and OPorto Factory Houses, British Merchants and Ec. Relations

Excerpt:

 In 1938 the Rev. H. F. Williams appealed for the loan of any records about the Chaplaincy history. Miss Alice de Mascarenhas offered him two old books belonging to her grandfather, Hugh Goodair. They were indeed "a find". One was the Hospital Minute Book and the other the Minute Book of the "Society of Merchants and Factors of Lisbon 1814-1863".

The former was the more valuable, as besides the early Hospital history it was used as a "Factory Journal" 1808-10 and threw a flood of light on the last days of that institution.

It is,especially to one who has worked on the history of Calcutta, most notable how little there is on the Lisbon Factory, and no eyewitness tells of the French occupation from the British standpoint, which makes any additional information more useful. The last Factory Minutes are especially valuable, even though they posess the defect of all minutes when used as Historical evidence, that they presuppose the information a Committee of course has, but which posterity has lost. Still, with these Minutes, the story of the last Meetings of the Factory can be told.

Read full article here