Almada (Dr José de)
Original title: Almada (Dr. José de)
Biography of Dr José de Almada (born Funchal 1880), a Coimbra-trained lawyer and senior official of the Portuguese Colonial and Foreign Ministries who undertook diplomatic missions abroad. In 1927 he came to Madeira to study the Lombada da Ponta do Sol question.
He is the son of Dr José António de Almada, discussed above, and of Dona Margarida de Ornelas de Almada, and was born in Funchal on 23 February 1880. He completed his secondary studies in this city and in Switzerland and took his law degree at the University of Coimbra in 1903.
He is deputy director-general of Political and Civil Administration at the Ministry of the Colonies and serves as Colonial Adviser at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. His fruitful activity has been distinguished above all by important public-service commissions at home and abroad. Particularly notable are the missions on which our governments have repeatedly sent him to London, to the Union of South Africa, to Geneva at the League of Nations, etc., defending Portugal’s interests in lengthy negotiations with the governments of various foreign countries. In the course of these missions he has published many reports and studies written in French and English, and he has also published a book entitled Impressões da Africa do Sul.
He came to Madeira in 1927 to study the so-called Lombada da Ponta do Sol (‘ridge of Ponta do Sol’) question, as can be seen in more detail in the pamphlet entitled A Lombada dos Esmeraldos na Ilha da Madeira, published in 1933 by Father Fernando Augusto da Silva.
In this article
Time
Years mentioned · 04Place
Places mentioned · 07
Abroad
- Coimbra
Portugal. University where he took his law degree in 1903.
Portuguese mainland university city where many Madeirans studied law or medicine, and where Padre Luís Gonçalves da Câmara taught and was rector of the Jesuit college. It hosted the 1921 academic table-tennis championship, and its dormancy and rainfall data are compared with Funchal's.
- Funchal
Birthplace of José de Almada, where he also studied.
The capital of the archipelago and seat of the principal captaincy, where settlement began; it was made a vila c.1451–52. Its bay, the widest in the archipelago, lies between Ponta do Garajau and Ponta da Cruz and offers sheltered anchorage, though its harbour had never been studied oceanographically. The Elucidário discusses it as a health resort with climate data and records the January 1906 disturbances, the Danish prince's visit in May 1846 and recent volcanic cones in the area.
- Geneva
Switzerland. Where he represented Portugal at the League of Nations.
Foreign city (Geneva). Dr José de Almada represented Portugal at the League of Nations there, and Júlia Neto won a prize at its conservatoire. The Prince of Oldenburg died there in January 1886.
- Lombada da Ponta do Sol
Ponta do Sol. Estate whose legal question he came to study in 1927.
Lombada da Ponta do Sol is a locality in the parish and municipality of Ponta do Sol. It was the great estate of Rui Gonçalves da Câmara, leased to João Esmeraldo in 1473 and worked by eighty slaves. It became the seat of the Santo Espírito entail, with the Esmeraldo chapel, and was where D. Isabel de Abreu was besieged; the notes also record land from it sliding seawards in 1804 and a legal question over the estate studied in 1927.
- London
United Kingdom. One of the places of his diplomatic missions.
The British capital, the place of publication of many English works on Madeira, including those of the du Canes, Embleton and Bloxam. Mason compared its humidity with Funchal's, and artillery for the Fortress of São Tiago came from there. It hosted the 1909 applied chemistry congress.
- South Africa
Destination of his missions and subject of his book.
South Africa is recorded as the place where Prince Eugène Napoléon died in the Zulu War. It was the terminus of the Eastern Telegraph Company cable. It imported Madeiran wicker and osiers before developing its own wickerwork industry, and emigrants living there gave the Estreito da Calheta clock.
- Switzerland
Country where he pursued secondary studies.
A European country where Dr Krohn died in a sanatorium and Rui de Bianchi also died. It was the homeland of Padre Alphonse Luisier, the place of Dr José de Almada's secondary studies and where the ex-Empress Zita's children were educated; it was visited on the 1926 pilgrimage.
People
People mentioned · 03- José de Almada1880–1885
Madeiran jurist and colonial consultant who represented Portugal abroad and studied the Lombada da Ponta do Sol question in 1927.
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Priest who published in 1933 the pamphlet on the Lombada dos Esmeraldos describing Almada's study.
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Mother of Dr José de Almada.