Susan Lowndes Marques

Susan Lowndes Marques (1907-1993), was the daughter of the prolific novelist Marie Belloc Lowndes and of Frederick Lowndes of The Times. She was the granddaughter of the writer and women’s rights activist, Bessie Rayner Parkes Belloc, and niece of the poet, Hilaire Belloc. A great, great-grandfather was the British scientist, Joseph Priestley, who was credited with the discovery of oxygen.

She rejected her father’s suggestion that she go to Oxford University, expecting that her future would be determined by the man she chose for a husband. Instead, she did voluntary social work, running, with her sister, a club for working girls at Fulham, and was also heavily involved with activities of the Catholic Church. For a time she seriously considered becoming a nun. In 1936, she opened an antique shop in London, specialising in Queen Anne furniture.

Susan was introduced to Luiz Marques, already editor of the Anglo-Portuguese News (APN), in Estoril in August 1938 and they were married in Westminster Cathedral that December. They had three children: Paulo Lowndes Marques, lawyer, politician, and former Chairman of the BHSP, Ana Vicente, who wrote Arcádia about the couple, and Antónia Marques Leitão.

Together with her husband, Susan Lowndes edited and later owned the APN. During the Second World War both worked for the British Embassy. They also gave support in Lisbon to the many refugees who passed through Portugal. After the War, they moved to Monte Estoril, where their house, full of books, was always open to family, friends and acquaintances. They kept up friendships with various friends of Susan’s family who came to Portugal, including Graham Greene, Aldous Huxley, Evelyn Waugh, Cyril Connolly, Rose Macaulay, Angus Wilson and Sachaverell Sitwell. They were also very friendly with the poet Roy Campbell and his wife Mary, both devoted Catholics, who lived in Portugal.

Susan published hundreds of articles in the APN on the most varied subjects. Many were on religious topics including several on the Fátima Sanctuary. She also wrote two books on Portugal, jointly authoring The Selective Traveller in Portugal with Ann Bridge, which became a classic travel book on the country, and writing Travellers´ Guide to Portugal, which went through three editions. Her other publications included A Practical Guide to Fátima and Good Food from Spain and Portugal. She was also responsible for updating the Fodor’s Guide to Portugal on several occasions and, for Fodor, contributed a chapter on Portugal in the Woman’s Guide to Europe.

She also edited her mother’s diaries, together with her elder sister, Elizabeth, Countess of Iddesleigh, which Susan published as Diaries and Letters of Marie Belloc Lowndes, which received excellent reviews. She was an admirer of art and architecture and, together with Alice Berkeley, wrote English Art in Portugal, which was published after her death. As her son Paulo wrote in the obituary published in the APN, she was “undoubtedly the English person who knew most about Portuguese art”. She was correspondent in Portugal for the London-based Catholic Herald, the US Catholic News Service, and The Rosary in New York, as well as a contributor to other publications, such as The Tablet. Despite the Estado Novo censorship she sent out thousands of pieces of news, reporting on Catholic life and other matters in Portugal, often using a pseudonym. She continued this work until a couple of weeks before her death.

Few other people would have much energy left after running, writing and editing a newspaper, writing several books, and being an international correspondent but Susan always found time to help the British community in Portugal. She worked voluntarily in various institutions such as the British Hospital, St. Julian’s School, the British Retirement Home, which she established, the Charitable Fund, the Anglo-Portuguese Society in London, the Women’s Royal Voluntary Service, and others.

Susan Lowndes was made a Member of the Order of the British Empire in 1975 for her work for the British Community in Portugal. In 2007, her name was given to a street in Estoril. The Portuguese writer and art specialist, Francisco Hipolito Raposo referred to her as being a “luxurious Portuguese person”, in an obituary titled Goodbye, Mrs Lowndes.

Main source: Who was Susan Lowndes and what was she doing in Portugal? by Ana Vicente.