The Azores and Espionage During World War II: The Risk to Portuguese Neutrality

Author: Marisa Filipe

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Year: 2025

Subject Matter: WW2

The Blandy Company of Madeira

Author: Andrew Shepherd

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Year: 2025

Subject Matter: British in Portugal

The British in Portugal

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.

The British in Portugal

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.

Correspondence

The article by Jesse Pyles in the last newsletter, entitled The 2nd Portuguese Division and the Battle of La Lys: A Review of Proper Context, has attracted some discussion. In his article Pyles noted the official British narrative that the First British Army was defeated at the Battle of La Lys because the officers and men of the 2nd Portuguese Division left the battlefield before German infantry attacked. He argued that this view does not align with reports written by men who served on the battlefield, and that the Portuguese soldiers who defended the front lines performed no worse than the British soldiers on their flanks.

Peter Booker wrote to object to this interpretation, arguing that Pyles produced no evidence to support his assertion that the Portuguese fought well at La Lys. He argued that the Portuguese forces were almost certainly underprepared for the conditions they would face in Flanders. Moreover, the sending abroad of young men had led to declining popularity for the government and the principle of Portuguese intervention in the war was increasingly questioned.  Booker quoted a couple of songs from the Portuguese trenches: O great Sidónio Pais/Director of the Revolution/Don't allow us to suffer more/ Relieve our Division and In this life of digging/We are digging, as you see/If the Boche make an advance/The whole CEP will run away.

In his reply, Pyles quoted several historians who stressed the jingoism and arrogance of the British and the tendency to write histories that showed them in a positive light. He argued that about one third of the 2nd Division, or about one half of its effective combat force, did become casualties or prisoners, which seems to suggest that they were not running away. These figures were similar to those experienced by the British 40th Division in the same battle,

Booker then took issue with Pyles’ comment that he was using “anecdotes, misinformation and distortion” and "an amalgam of speculation and myth". He noted that Pyles did not indicate where these occurred. He stressed that much of his argument was based on the work of two respected Portuguese historians, Oliveira Marques and Joaquim Vieira, but Pyles did not state whether he disagreed with those historians. Nevertheless, the two did find some common ground in that Booker agreed with Pyles that the British High Command wanted to deflect attention and blame and that Haig and many other WW1 commanders needlessly expended the lives of their infantry in poor attacks.  

We then invited our member Maj. Gen. Rui Moura, a military historian, to try to resolve the differences between the two. However, he came down firmly on the side of Pyles, arguing that Booker was repeating claims that had long been discredited by both Portuguese and British historians but had never reached the British public. While this may not have been totally clear from the brief article published in the last newsletter (partly due to the editor's wish to keep footnotes to a minimum), Moura wrote that Pyles’ research had addressed this in detail, drawing on extensive archival material and published works in his PhD research, which incorporates the Portuguese perspective throughout. In addition, he stated that the tactical and operational level reports from the units involved confirmed this version, reinforcing the robustness of the evidence presented by Pyles

This brief, and probably inadequate, summary can only touch on a few of the issues raised. The full debate can be obtained by writing to our library.

We welcome correspondence on our newsletters and on the articles contained therein. We also welcome offers of articles or suggestions of articles that you would like us to write. 

Members' News

As part of this year's Cultural Week in Cemeteries, the municipality of Lisbon is organising a tour in English of the Alto de São João Cemetery on Sunday 26 October at 11.00. Starting inside the mausoleum of the Viscounts of Valmor and ending at the mausoleum of the Benefactors of the Misericórdia, the visit will take participants to some of the cemetery's most distinguished monuments and will explore its rich funerary symbolism and architectural styles. The visit is free but bookings are essential at cemiterios.visitas@cm-lisboa.pt.

Our member, Stuart Stoker, reminds the editor that 2025 marks the 100th anniversary of the Great Portuguese Bank Note scandal, when the London printers of Waterlow & Sons were persuaded by a confidence trickster, Alves Reis, to print Portuguese notes and ship them to unauthorised addresses. We published an excellent article on this by Andrew Bull (former headmaster of St. Julian's) in 1997.  

The Seventh Cascais Memorial Lecture by Eduardo Gomes will be held on 23 October at 15.30 in Casa Sommer, Cascais. This lecture will be sponsored by the Society in memory of our former chairman, Paulo Lowndes Marques. For more information and to reserve a place, please see here.

The National Day of the Lines of Torres Vedras will be celebrated on the early evening of Monday October 20, in Arruda dos Vinhos. If you would like to participate, please contact us through library@bhsportugal.org. The deadline to confirm with the organisers is 15 October.

The multi-society Trafalgar Day luncheon will be held at the Cascais Cultural Centre on Wednesday October 22. The cost will be €42 and this includes a full lunch, a welcome drink, wine and beverages and coffee. There will be speakers but, at the time of going to press, these have not been finalised. If you would like to attend please contact David Wright of the RBC at rblportugallisbonrep@gmail.com.

Answer to the Quiz. Columbus married Filipa Moniz Perestrelo, daughter of an impoverished Portuguese-Italian noble family. It is not clear how or where they met, but they married on Porto Santo island, Madeira in 1479.