William Shirley

William Shirley (1734–1811) was a British merchant who was for many years engaged in business in Portugal. He left Lisbon under a cloud in 1753 but was to return later.

Following three years of bad harvests, the Marquess of Pombal forbade the re-export of grain arriving in the port of Lisbon in 1753. There was also famine in Spain and he was concerned that the high prices there would encourage exports, so exacerbating the situation in Portugal. The British Factory called a meeting to protest the export ban but this led to internal disagreements, with Shirley roundly abusing the British Consul, George Crowle, who believed that there was merit in Pombal’s case.

For his behaviour, Shirley was banished from Lisbon by the Portuguese Judge Conservator of the Factory and was given five days to leave. This horrified the British Community, which basically considered that the role of the consul was to be their mouthpiece with the authorities, and was certainly not take the Portuguese side. Angry letters to London eventually led to Crowle’s removal, giving Shirley the opportunity to return to Portugal, where he narrowly avoided death during the 1755 earthquake.

In 1758 there was an attempted assassination of King Joseph I of Portugal. Pombal blamed the noble Tavora family on the spurious grounds that the King had been visiting his mistress, a member of that family, prior to the attempt. At least ten members of the family were tortured and executed, which was seen by many as an attempt by Pombal to send a warning to other members of the nobility, against whom he held a grudge. However, their treatment may have had less to do with pour encourager les autres than with the fact that he had apparently proposed marriage to the daughter of the Marquis de Tavora soon after his arrival in Lisbon and had been rebuffed by the family

In England, Shirley responded to a pamphlet justifying the executions, with a pamphlet of his own called Observations on a pamphlet lately published, entitled, “The genuine and legal sentence pronounced by the high court of judicature of Portugal upon the conspirators against the life of his most faithful majesty; with the just motives for the same”, arguing strongly that it was a miscarriage of justice.

Shirley was considered an authority on trade and international commerce and wrote several letters in the Daily Gazetteer, signed Lusitanicus, on the relations of Portugal and Great Britain. He was also by some accounts a prolific, although inadequate, playwright. He is said to have quarrelled with the famous actor, David Garrick, and published a pamphlet criticising Garrick.

Shirley died in Lisbon in 1811. He had a daughter but no male heir. His Will, witnessed by, among others, Abraham Wheelhouse (see next column), specified that he should be buried at Corpo Santo Church, long associated with the Irish Catholic community in Lisbon. This suggests that he had converted to Catholicism as he had married his second wife, Mary Barnett, in 1772 at St. George’s.