British Eyewitness Accounts of the Impact of the Portuguese Revolution

Author: Andrew Shepherd

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Year: 2024

Subject Matter: British in Portugal

The Treaties of 1810 and the gradual abolition of slave traffic in Brazil

Author: Milena Fernandes de Oliveira

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Year: 2024

Subject Matter: NA

The British in Portugal

James Cavenagh Murphy (1760-1814) was born into a humble family in Blackrock, near Cork, Ireland. He was a bricklayer but had considerable talent for drawing and caricature. When this was recognised, he was given the chance to go to Dublin to study drawing and painting, and later architecture.

Employed by William Conyngham in Dublin, Murphy was sent to Portugal to draw the Dominican Batalha Monastery, said to be one of the best examples of the Gothic style in the country. He disembarked in Porto on 8 January 1789, having spent three days at anchor in the Douro as the river’s turbulence made it impossible for customs officials to visit and passengers to disembark. There he obtained a letter of introduction to the Prior of Batalha from an English merchant, making a 7-day journey to the monastery, including a stop to visit the university at Coimbra, in a small chaise pulled by mules. He stayed in Batalha for 13 weeks, much of which he spent measuring and drawing the building. However, his non-stop efforts led to illness and he was not impressed with his doctor. Initially the friars had been suspicious of Murphy but he seems to have won them over and left with a certificate of his good conduct, under the royal seal of the monastery.

Batalha was followed by a tour of the centre of the country for the rest of 1789, beginning with the Marinha Grande glass factory, where he stayed with the British owner, William Stephens. He stayed for three weeks at the monastery of Alcobaça before making his way to Vila Franca de Xira and catching a boat down the Tagus to Lisbon. His drawings there included some of the Praça do Comércio, showing that it has changed little since he was there. Other places he visited included the British cemetery. One of his many interesting observations of Lisbon was that the servants in private houses were all from Galicia. Another was that when visiting the homes of others the gentry were obliged to go by coach. No one would be considered a gentleman if he arrived on foot. After Lisbon he visited Sintra and Mafra, before heading to Évora.

In 1790, he returned to the British Isles, and began preparing the publication of the drawings, accompanied by an introduction in which he discussed the foundations of Gothic architecture and provided a translation of part of the history of St. Dominic by Frei Luís de Sousa. Murphy’s work, entitled Plans, Elevations, Sections and Views of the Church of Batalha, was published in instalments between 1792 and 1795, and was very popular, a fact evidenced by the lists of subscribers published at the end of the instalments. Among these were the Portuguese Prince Regent and the British monarchs, Horace Walpole, James Wyatt, and William Beckford. His work would be the inspiration for the publication of a series of detailed surveys on Gothic buildings in England.

In 1795, Murphy published Travels in Portugal, an illustrated diary of his trip to Portugal, which he hoped would provide him with a pension in his later years. In 1799 he returned to Portugal, seeking a patron to support a project to survey other old buildings. By 1801 he was experiencing financial difficulties that eventually led him to Spain where, in Seville and Córdoba, he would collect material for two other drawing projects, this time on antiquities and the history of Arab Spain.

Generally accused of being a poor writer, Murphy was nevertheless an extraordinary man. His work in Batalha provided an invaluable record of the monastery, which was to suffer the demolition of numerous buildings in the 19th century. He also provided us with written information about the Batalha community and life in the convent. He died in 1814.

Sources: Mosteiro da Batalha, James Murphy and A.H. Norris, A Visitor to Portugal in 1789, BHSP Annual Report 2, 1975.

The British in Portugal

Edgar Prestage (1869-1951) was the pre-eminent British expert of his time on Portuguese history and literature and Britain’s first professor of Portuguese. Mixing in the highest circles (he was, for example, a member of the Royal Sporting Club of Cascais), Prestage was made a Grand Officer of the Order of Saint James of the Sword in 1930.

Born in Manchester of a wealthy family from Bowdon in Cheshire, although originally from High Wycombe, Prestage was educated at Radley College where, according to the APN’s obituary, “for no accountable reason” he began to take an interest in Portugal and its history, apparently being fascinated by the maps of the country. Another source says that his interest in Portugal arose from reading adventure stories, particularly of Vasco da Gama's voyage to India. He converted to Catholicism when he was 16. He then went on to Balliol College, Oxford, studying Portuguese history and literature. However, he did not immediately become an academic, first taking a law course at Owens College, the forerunner of Manchester University, and then spending a decade working with his father’s law firm in Manchester, something he did not enjoy. In 1905, together with Sebastião Clemente Deiró, he formed the Anglo-Portuguese Chamber of Commerce, although it did not last long. In 1908 he became a special lecturer in Portuguese literature at the University of Manchester.

Never reluctant to approach the famous men of his day, he corresponded with Sir Richard Burton and several celebrated Portuguese writers, including Teófilo Braga and Jaime Batalha Reis who was the Portuguese consul in London in the 1890s. His particular interest was Camões and he soon became accepted as a leading scholar of the poet. He first visited Portugal in 1890 or 1891 and must have rapidly achieved prominence because he was elected as a corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences of Lisbon in 1893, although he had not produced any significant work at that time. Among those he met during his first trip was Oliveira Martins, said to be Portugal’s leading historian, who provided Prestage with letters of introduction. He would also become a member of the Geography Society of Lisbon and the Coimbra Institute, and later of the Royal Historical Society of Madrid.

Starting to spend more time in Portugal he became a regular participant at the literary salons in Lisbon of Maria Amália Vaz de Carvalho, wife of the poet António Cândido Gonçalves Crespo, and married their daughter, Cristina, in 1907. She was to commit suicide ten years later. In 1912 he founded the Sociedade Portuguesa de Estudios Històricos. During the first World War he was the press attaché at the British Embassy in Lisbon, ceasing his connections with Manchester University. Prestage was a monarchist and never became reconciled to the republican regime until Salazar came to power.

In 1923 Prestage became Camões Professor at King´s College, London, a position he held for a decade. He was elected Fellow of the British Academy and Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society. He and his second wife, Victoria Cobb of the Porto port family, were among the just 20 guests at the wedding of the Anglo-Portuguese News editor, Luiz Marques and Susan Lowndes in 1938 in the crypt of Westminster Cathedral. In 1914 he had sold and donated his personal library and personal papers from his home in Cheshire to the Rylands Library of the University of Manchester. He died in London in 1951, having produced around 100 publications on Portugal but in his last years had been in bad health and had been more concerned with spiritual matters than work. He had once been told by Batalha Reis that he certainly deserved “a monument in Lisbon”. His correspondence, kept at King´s College Library, continues to be studied as does that in Manchester.

Main source: John F. Laidlar. Edgar Prestage: Manchester's Portuguese Pioneer. BHSP Annual Report 23. 1996

50 Years Ago

The APN’s coverage of the revolution continued in the edition of 12 October with the front page news of General Francisco Costa Gomes being appointed the new President of the Republic by the Junta Nacional de Salvação, following the dramatic resignation of General Spínola. The APN is silent on the reasons for his resignation, which was in fact partly due to what he saw as the profound move to the political left, its effects on the military and the independence of the Portuguese colonies.

Letters to the editor of the same edition contains a confession from Marion Spence of University One, Baltimore that “it would be very easy for me to become addicted to the Anglo-Portuguese News. It has an air of naïve sophistication which I find refreshing”.

In the edition of 26 October there is an announcement that the British Historical Society of Portugal will hold its inaugural meeting on Wednesday 30 October at 6.15 pm at the Estrela Hall, Lisbon. Mr. Evan Davies of London University will give a talk on “Marshall Beresford”. The following edition mentions that there were more than fifty present.

In the edition of 9 November we read that the Royal British Club annual ball was held on Hallowe’en night at its premises in Rua da Estrela. The Club was privileged to entertain Captain Stacey R.N. and some twenty officers of H.M.S Tiger. Following a masked parade, the proceedings were considerably enlivened by the music of a group from the ship.

Sir Winston Churchill was born on 30 November 1874 and to commemorate this event the edition of 23 November includes an article “Not to be forgotten” written by Sir Asa Briggs, Professor of History and Vice-Chancellor of Sussex University. Briggs concludes “His Zurich speech of September 1946 was a landmark. The sovereign remedy, Churchill argued, was to recreate the European Family or as much of it as we can and provide it with a structure under which it can dwell in peace, in safety and in freedom. We must build a kind of United States of Europe”.

Sabina goes Christmas shopping in the edition of 7 December and is full of praise for the useful presents combining usefulness with lovely designs such as those to be found at the shop Loiça de Sacavém in the Avenida de Liberdade, Lisbon. She notes that dinner, tea and coffee services are still remarkably low in price and also recommends the colourful figures of Peninsular War soldiers and cavalrymen with their uniforms completely true to life.

The edition of 7 December contains an announcement to the effect that the competition for the Ian Leslie Trophy, which is open to all chartered accountants resident in Portugal or the adjacent islands, will be held at Estoril Golf Club on Tuesday 7 December, play beginning at 9.00 am. Any chartered accountant wishing to compete should contact A.J. Bird Esq, Av. António Augusto Aguiar etc. (Unfortunately, no mention of the winner is made in a subsequent edition).

And finally, the edition of 21 December contains an item on fox hunting: “Through the kindness of Baroness Beck, we learn that the hunting season began this year on 30 November, the meet being somewhere beyond Vila Franca de Xira. The field numbered 43 – 12 members in pink coats, 9 women and various guests. The weather was splendid and two foxes were run. There had to be 15 km. of hacking back to the St. Hubert Club and the occasion ended with a late luncheon”.

Members' News

We are pleased to announce that the British Ambassador, Ms. Lisa Bandari, has accepted to become the Patron of the Society. The British Ambassador has been the patron since our founding in 1974 and we are grateful that Ms Bandari has agreed to continue that tradition.

We have already received several positive comments from people who have consulted the new Anglo-Portuguese News website. Those who have not yet taken a look can find it at angloportuguesenews.pt

Andrew Shepherd is compiling a history of the BHSP, which celebrated its 50th anniversary this year. If you have been involved with the society as a council member or in any other role, he would like to receive your reminiscences and anecdotes. Please write to him at library@bhsportugal.org

The articles from our 50th Annual Report (2023) are now available on our website. Please click here to see them and download the ones that interest you.

As announced by our Chairman at the event at Casa Veva de Lima, we are pleased to announce that Patricia Lamb has been appointed as an Honorary Member of the Society. She was the Society's Events Organiser between 1996 and 2015. Thanks for all your hard work, Patricia.

Our member Ninna Taylor was recently part of a small group to visit Covilhã, an important centre of the Portuguese wool industry. You can read her report on Anglo-Portuguese relations and the Portuguese wool industry here.

Our trip to Viseu in May 2025 has proved very popular and we just have a couple of places still unreserved. If you would like to reserve a place, please see here.

We are in the process of migrating to a new software system for membership and events, so you may experience a few gremlins in the coming months. Those who are members of the RBC should have no problems in using the new system as we shall be using the same software. All our members' details are now loaded onto the software but you will need to login and set up a password. We will be sending out detailed instructions in a few days. To login, please be sure to use the email address that this newsletter was sent to.

On Saturday 26 October, Filipa Lowndes Vicente repeated the talk she had given to Lisbon members, on English visitors to Goa (1850-1950) to members in Porto. The event was very well attended with over 50 members and guests present at the Oporto Cricket and Lawn Tennis Club.

Answer to Quiz. On the 600th anniversary of the marriage of Philippa of Lancaster, daughter of John of Gaunt, to King D. João I, the society organised a bronze plaque of Queen Philippa, sculpted by António Duarte, which was installed at Sintra Palace, where she spent much of her time.