BBC Broadcasts to Portugal in WW2

Author: Nelson Ribeiro

Report:

Page:

Year: 2026

Subject Matter: Anglo-Portuguese relations

Prince William of Orange’s Visit to Porto in 1812/1813: Extracts from his Diaries

Author: Tim Richardson (Transcription)

Report:

Page:

Year: 2026

Subject Matter: British in Portugal

The British in Portugal

John Forbes (1733–1808) of Scotland, often known as Forbes-Skellater, became a general in the Portuguese army. He accompanied the Portuguese Royal Family to Brazil in 1808, dying shortly thereafter. He was the second son of George Forbes of Skellater in Aberdeenshire who fought for the Jacobites during the rising of 1745-46, and escaped across the Channel after they were soundly defeated at the Battle of Culloden, joining the Jacobite forces in France.

Forbes entered military service at the age of fifteen as a volunteer on the French side at the Siege of Maastrict of 1748, probably together with his father, and was successful in winning a commission as a lieutenant. In 1754 he was briefly arrested in Edinburgh but was released after assuring the authorities that he was only in Scotland for personal reasons.

Nothing is then known about him until 1763 when he was a captain in the French Royal Scots (Royal Écossais), a regiment of Scottish Jacobite exiles in French Service, famous for fighting in the 1745 Jacobite Rising in Scotland. A month later he challenged the English radical politician, John Wilkes, to a duel in Paris, but Wilkes wisely left the country.

At the request of the Marquis of Pombal, the Count of Schaumburg-Lippe led the allied troops in Portugal against the Spanish invasion of 1762-63. Successful in this endeavour, Pombal requested Lippe to stay on for a year after the peace agreement in 1763, to strengthen the Portuguese army, particularly as the British forces were returning home. When Lippe made it known that he needed officers to reorganise the army, Forbes was one of the first to volunteer.

He was given command of a company of Grenadiers in the Peniche Regiment. In 1766 he was promoted to lieutenant colonel of that regiment and the following year to full colonel of the Almeida Cavalry Regiment. In 1773 he was transferred to the Elvas Regiment and in 1775 he was promoted to brigadier. In 1778 he was appointed military governor of the province of Beira.

The family legend is that he married a Portuguese princess, King José I being forced to allow the marriage because his daughter was literally dying for love of Forbes. It is true that, from 1764, the Infanta Dorotea was described as being hysterical, accompanied by an almost total lack of appetite which had reduced her to a state of extreme weakness, leading to her death in 1771, but this was not because of Forbes.

He did, however, marry Anna Joaquina d'Almeida, possibly a Lady-in-Waiting in the palace and possibly a relative of Pombal. Her status was such that Forbes was forced to appeal to the Scottish authorities to prove his noble lineage before the wedding was permitted. The marriage may have contributed to his meteoric rise in rank. The couple had three daughters.

He served for many years as adjutant-general of the Portuguese army, being asked to resign in 1789 due to the jealousy of the Portuguese officers. In 1793 he was made a knight of the Military Order of Aviz and promoted to lieutenant general. During his career he was given several other honours.

When Portugal decided to join the French Revolutionary Wars, Forbes was recalled from retirement and given command of the 5,000-strong division which, together with a 22-gun brigade of artillery, was sent to assist the Spaniards in the War of the Pyrenees (1793–1795).

At the end of November 1807, he accompanied Dona Maria I, the prince regent and the Royal Court when they fled for Brazil before Junot and the French forces could enter Lisbon. On arrival he was appointed military governor of Rio de Janeiro on 2 April 1808, but he died a few days later.

Sources: A Soldier of Fortune by James Neil, and Wikipedia

Suggestions for future articles on The British in Portugal would be welcomed by the editor of the newsletter.

The British in Portugal

Robert Dyer Lyons was a native of Cork and a professor of medicine and pathology at the Medical School of the Catholic University of Dublin. In 1857 he visited Lisbon to investigate a yellow fever outbreak. 

Lyons, the son of a well-to-do merchant, was 31 when he headed to Lisbon. He was already an accepted authority on the use of the microscope and, at the invitation of the British Government, had spent a year as Pathologist-in-Chief in the Crimea investigating the fevers that were depleting the British forces. He had requested leave of absence from the rector of the Catholic University on 22 November 1857, explaining that 'the most recent accounts of the great epidemic now raging at Lisbon concur in describing it as yellow fever of a very bad type. I am extremely desirous of availing myself of this opportunity for investigating the pathology of this very formidable disease.'

There had been a yellow fever epidemic in Lisbon in 1723. A few isolated cases occurred in Porto in 1850 and 1851 and there was a small epidemic in 1856. The few cases that occurred in Lisbon early in August 1857 attracted little attention but, by September, there was an epidemic. Many people left Lisbon and others would have joined them were it not for the example of Dom Pedro V who stayed there and visited the sick. Most people stayed indoors as much as they could and a quarantine was eventually introduced.

The rector agreed on 23 November that Lyons should go and contributed £50 towards his expenses. By the time he reached Lisbon, the epidemic had passed its peak but he was welcomed by the civil governor, the Count of Sobral, and by the medical faculty at the university who gave him permission to carry out post-mortems, of which he did 24, noting that the skin was invariably yellow. "The tint varied a good deal; it was sometimes a light, faint, sometimes a rich canary or gamboge colour, sometimes a light, faint, sometimes of a deeper yellow with a more-dusky hue ..." He was received by the king.

Strangely, although perhaps pleasingly to our male Portuguese members, he commented on the size of the penis of the male corpses, noting that 'I am informed (on medical authority) that a very enlarged state of the genitals is by no means an uncommon physiological condition amongst the population in question.'

At this time the method of transmission of yellow fever was unknown and Lyons set about investigating possible causes, for example by making a study of the climate, noting in particular the rainfall patterns of the previous years. He commented on the poor water supply, the lack of drains and the disposal of excreta by throwing it into the street, which at least gave him the opportunity to carry out scatological studies.  He pointed out that the sewers were often blocked when they reached the Tagus and that there were malicious odours coming from the river.

While the prevailing view was that the yellow fever had arrived on a ship from Brazil, Lyons found no evidence that it had been imported, reporting that just as many cases were found in the higher parts of the city as close to the port. The studies he conducted made him believe that yellow fever was not the result of human-to-human transmission (we know now that it is transmitted by mosquitos), pointing out that while many people had fled to Sintra there were no reported cases there. He noted that while some doctors had died from the disease there was little reluctance to attend the ill. In fact, he complimented the people of Lisbon for the attention that they paid to the sick. 

Lyons published a detailed report in a medical journal and included an account of the disease in his Treatise on Fever. Dom Pedro V awarded him the cross and insignia of the Ancient Order of Christ. His report was printed by HMSO and submitted to both houses of the British parliament. He was elected to parliament in 1880 and died suddenly in 1886.

Main source: Lyons, J. B. ‘Dublin Observer of the Lisbon Yellow Fever Epidemic’.

50 Years Ago

Politically, Portugal at the beginning of 1976 was in a period of calm, as a result of the stabilising effects of the events of 25 November 1975. The Anglo-Portuguese News edition of 3 January records that the prime minister, Admiral Pinheiro de Azevedo, said in his Christmas broadcast that although the financial and economic outlook for 1976 was frankly bad, it was not hopeless provided that people tightened their belts and made up their minds to increase production. The prime minister promised that there would be a general election by 25 April of that year so that a real Legislative Assembly might be chosen on the basis of the new Constitution, which the existing Assembly was laboriously drafting.

On a happy note, St Dominic’s school had celebrated its first Christmas in its new premises. The day before the end of term the children gave a Festival of Carols, followed by a Tableau of the Nativity, to a large gathering of parents and friends. This was St. Dominic’s first Christmas in the new school at Arneiro near Oeiras. St Dominic’s, the international branch of the well-known Colégio de Bom Sucesso at Pedrouços, is run by Irish Dominican nuns, supported by highly trained specialized teachers.

But to add to the gloom, in the edition of 30 January veteran journalist José Shercliff wrote the front page leading article with the title “Portugal has faced austerity before”. The article began “With all this talk of austerity, of restrictions, food shortages, and soaring prices, the spectre of rationing stalks the land. Yet no one seems to remember that this happened in Portugal before, thirty odd years ago during the Second World War. And people faced that austerity and went through to better times”. There followed a detailed description of everyday life during the war years with shortages, rationing and other privations

In the edition of 27 February, obviously with spring around the corner, a short item, “For Married Couples” noted that “British Airways, following a generous impulse, now offers special rates for wives of businessmen. As they pleasantly say, “Why not have a second honeymoon?”. Businessmen visiting London could take their wives with them at a 50% discount on their wives’ tickets. This facility applied equally from Lisbon or Faro, to London and back”. It would appear that this largesse did not apply to Oporto businessmen and their wives – EG.

Photocopies have been commonplace for years and all home-office printers have a copying facility. But for many people back in 1976 it was quite difficult to obtain a copy of a document. So “Shopping News by Sabina”, 12 March, highly recommended ATOMO behind the Finanças in Cascais. “They do it very well and the copy comes out cleaner than the original. The cost is 6 Escudos a copy”.

Finally, the same columnist issued a health warning. She warned that bitter almonds are poisonous if eaten like ordinary blanched almonds. They should be only eaten as a slight flavouring in certain dishes and never eaten straight.

Edward Godfrey

Members' News

We are sorry to report the recent death of Anne Godden in late October at the age of 88. In recent years she had been a resident of the British Retirement Home in São João de Estoril. Anne was secretary of the British Historical Society for several years until 2015. The Society greatly benefitted from her organizational and secretarial skills as did other British community organizations. Anne never married and outlived or sadly lost contact with members of her extended family.

Anne was born in England in 1937 and as a young child moved to Brazil with her parents where she spent the war years, eventually going to boarding school in England, and then returning to Brazil. Her fluency in Portuguese stood her in good stead and a few years later, working as a secretary in London, she was successfully interviewed for the position of secretary to the CEO of TAP. She moved to Lisbon and served successive CEOs.

Members may be interested to take a look at Portugal through the eyes of modern British artists, a well-illustrated webpage that discusses the paintings of British visitors to Portugal during the Estado Novo period. Written by Robert Wilkes, the article includes paintings by Cedric Morris, David Michie, Anne Redpath, Elizabeth Blackadder, Tristram Hillier, Edward Bawden, and Duncan Grant. All paintings shown are held by British museums. The article can be found here.

The articles in our 2024 Annual Report have now been uploaded to our web site. You can find them here.

A team representing the BHSP came out as victors in the annual RBC quiz in November.  Following a tense tie break, our chairman's knowledge of British monarchy and Portugal proved decisive. Congratulations to Sue and Tim Munnion, Jackie and Manual Oliveira, Edward Godfrey and Andrew Shepherd. The quiz night is held annually to raise funds for the Lares da Boa Vontade, a very worthy cause. €1755 was raised in 2025. Photos of the event.

Member Mark Crathorne was present at the book launch of a new history of the Battle of Bussaco, 1810, written by Nuno Alegre, a local hotelier and historian. Mark contributed research and was responsible for proof-reading this bi-lingual book. The Society’s logo features predominantly. Designed as a visitors’ guide to the battlefield, the book also recounts the journey of the author’s painstaking research to identify the common grave where the majority of the 2,000 dead from both sides were buried.

If any readers have information about the Historical Association of Lisbon between the years 1954 and 1962, could they please contact Andrew Shepherd.

Answer to the Quiz: Literally the term means "For the English to see" but it has come to mean "to pull the rug over someone's eyes". There are several explanations for how it came about. The first refers to when ships of the Royal Navy stopped Portuguese slaving vessels in transit to Brazil and were tricked into thinking that the ships were only carrying a cargo of merchandise, when in fact slaves were hidden in a sealed compartment underneath the goods. 

A related explanation is that, following the 1807 abolition of slave trading by Britain, it assumed the role of international policeman. Various treaties were signed with slave-trading countries including Portugal, in which those countries agreed to end slavery. But, for the Portuguese, the text of those treaties was “only for the English to see”.

Visiting dignataries often stimulate improvements to infrastructure but it is frequently only for show. The editor of this newsletter has seen a newly tarmacked road that stopped 20 metres down the road from a building Queen Elizabeth II visited in Papua New Guinea. In Portugal the story is that the visit of King Edward VII in 1903 led to many buildings on his route being externally repainted, with no improvements to the interiors. Again, it was just for the English to see.