Abraham Wheelhouse

Abraham Wheelhouse was a prominent English businessman based in Portugal. He was born on 20 June 1782 on the Isle of Man, his father, Francis, being from Sheffield and his mother, Anne, from Kent. One source says that Francis was a clockmaker but another suggests that he owned a mill on the Isle of Man. Later he and his family emigrated to Portugal and were to die in Lisbon. Wheelhouse married Isabel Emilia and they had a daughter and a son, George Abraham.

Nothing is known about how Abraham Wheelhouse originally acquired his fortune in Portugal but it is likely that his father was involved with the textile trade as there is correspondence between him and his son-in-law in the Isle of Man on the topic. By the 1830s, Abraham was able to make major purchases. Following the abolition of religious orders in 1834, he bought the São Francisco da Cidade monastery, which is now the Museu Nacional de Arte Contemporânea do Chiado in Lisbon. He equipped the building with a series of brick ovens, which can still be seen in the Sala dos Fornos. Among the products he produced were ship’s biscuits. These were made of flour, water, and salt, and were baked four times so that they would survive long sea journeys.

In 1837 the Baron of Braamcamp died and, shortly after, his son sold his quinta in Barreiro, south of the Tagus, to Wheelhouse. He planted mulberry trees there and became a leading producer of silk in Portugal. In 1882, the property was leased to the Reynolds family by the son of Wheelhouse and cork trees were planted. In 1897 the quinta was sold to the Sociedade Nacional de Cortiças. A notable feature of the property was a tidal flour mill, one of several on the Tagus estuary. By the beginning of this century the quinta had fallen into disrepair and there have recently been proposals to convert it into a hotel and to restore the tide mill.

In Barreiro, south of the Tagus, Wheelhouse also benefitted indirectly from the 1834 dissolution of the monasteries. Part of the Quinta do Conde had been owned by the Counts of Atouguia, until the last Count was executed in 1759 as part of the Tavora family trials (see column to the left), with his property being transferred to the state. In 1834 the Monastery of S. Vincent, also part of Quinta do Conde, was also put up for sale. Wheelhouse later acquired Casal do Sapo, which was part of the quinta, and included it in the dowry of his daughter, Georgina Henriette, who married José Joaquim de Almeida Lima in 1849.

In 1844 or 1845 Wheelhouse acquired several shares of the Companhia Confiança Nacional, a financing company. Due to its practice of accepting short-term deposits but making long-term investments the company rapidly went bankrupt and Wheelhouse suffered considerable losses. All was not lost, however, because the Companhia was merged with the Bank of Lisbon in 1846 to form the Bank of Portugal, and in 1847 he received several shares in the new bank.

Wheelhouse died on 9 March 1855. He was buried in the Prazeres cemetery.