Association for the Protection and Education of the Women of Funchal

In 1878 the distinguished writer Dom António da Costa published a pamphlet entitled Instituição de Ouro, which he later included in his notable work Auroras de Instrução em Portugal. In it he describes in broad strokes, and with well-deserved praise, the foundation and humanitarian aims of the Association for the Protection and Education of the Women of Funchal (Associação de Protecção e Instrução do Sexo Feminino Funchalense), which was established in Funchal on 10 March 1875.

It was a mutual-aid society, founded on the initiative of Dr João da Câmara Leme Homem de Vasconcelos, later Count of Canavial. Unfortunately it did not last long, but it was the first attempt to establish a body intended to help Madeiran women in sickness or old age.

A year later the association opened a model school with classes and workshops, which the aforementioned writer Dom António da Costa, one of the men who fought and worked hardest for the advancement of education in Portugal, describes with genuine admiration and enthusiasm. By the end of a year it already had eight hundred members and had collected 2,500,000 réis (the Portuguese money of account before 1911; 1,000 réis = 1 mil-réis, 1,000,000 réis = 1 conto) in revenue. It had distributed allowances and medicines and maintained a truly exemplary school, where elementary industrial and vocational training was given in addition to primary teaching.

This was a great deal for so brief an existence, and it was partly for this reason that the association, deserving of praise on so many counts, did not endure for long.

The statutes were drawn up by Dr Câmara Leme and approved by the senior authority of the district by royal decree (alvará) of 14 April 1875. By a ministerial order (portaria) of 30 August 1876, the central government commended Dr Câmara for his happy initiative; rarely has an official document borne such public and well-deserved witness to truth and justice as on this occasion.