The Story of Thomas William Reynolds and his Wife Maria Gertrudes Dias

Author:

A.H. Reynolds

Report:

9

Page:

54

Year:

1982

Subject Matter:

British Community and Family History

Excerpt:

In mid-1820s Thomas Reynolds of Chatham, Kent, and his wife Elizabeth Hunter left England and settled in Oporto where Thomas set up a firm of wine and general merchants (¹). The  couple took with them their three sons - Thomas William (b. 1811), Robert Hunter (b. 1820) and William Hunter (b. 1822); and in Oporto a dauhter, Elizabeth Hunter Reynolds, was born to them and baptized in the British Chapel (now St. James's Church) in 1827. But these were troubled times in Portugal; and in 1828 the Absolutist uprising in favour of D. Miguel, Queen Maria da Gloria's uncle, "compelled the family to leave rather hurriedly for Edinburgh." (²)

The eldest boy, Thomas William, and his cousin Robert Hunter (not to be confused with his brother, Robert Hunter Reynolds) remained in Oporto, however, to look after the business. And four years later, when D. Pedro de Bragança invaded Portugal to assert his daughter's rights as legitimate Queen, and the long siege of Oporto began, Thomas William and his cousin fought on the side of the Constitutionalists.

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