Prison

The old gaol of the judicial district (comarca) of Funchal stood at the southern end of the street now called Rua da Cadeia Velha, in a small house that was sold in 1824 to José António Monteiro for the sum of 3,600,000 réis (old Portuguese money of account; 1$000 = 1,000 réis, 1:000$000 = one conto = 1,000,000 réis). As early as 1768 this house was already in a fairly ruinous state, as can be seen from an official letter that the corregedor (royal district magistrate) Francisco Maria da Mota addressed to Francisco Xavier Furtado on 31 May of that year. Nevertheless, the prisoners were still held there in 1811, for on 15 November of that year the corregedor Manuel Caetano de Albuquerque stated that it was urgent to move the gaol to a more spacious and more secure house.

At its session of 30 June 1803 the municipal senate (Senado da Câmara, historic title of the Council) took possession of the house on the Largo da Sé (‘cathedral square’), where it had been holding its meetings for some time. The house had belonged to the farmstead (casal) of Dona Guiomar Madalena Acciaioly and had been put up for public auction because of debts to the National Treasury (Fazenda Nacional). Only some years later, certainly after 1813, was the lower part of the house turned into a gaol, while the upper part continued to serve as the town hall (Paços do Concelho).

At its session of 20 December 1813 the Council resolved that the gaol building should be paid for with the proceeds of the sale of the house then serving that purpose and that, should this not suffice, the alcaide-mor (royal governor of a castle and town) should contribute the remainder of the costs. This resolution could not be carried out, however, because the alcaide (town officer with police and jail duties) refused to contribute to these costs, claiming that he was no longer obliged to do so after the abolition of the donatary captaincy (donataria).

On 28 July 1827 the Defensor da Liberdade stated that the prisoners were extremely badly accommodated in the gaol on the Largo da Sé. It was perhaps to improve their conditions that, after the abolition of the religious orders in Portugal, they were transferred to the building of the Convent of São Francisco (St Francis of Assisi). They remained there only until 1836, however, when they returned to the house they had left a short time before, which, we believe, ceased from then on to serve as the town hall.

Although the building on the Largo da Sé now served exclusively as a gaol, this did nothing to improve the conditions of the prisoners who could not pay the gaol fee (carceragem). They continued to be shut up in damp ground-floor rooms without air or light.

On 2 July 1841 the Council resolved to move the gaol to the building where the Asylum now stands, but the

Government did not approve this transfer. An identical resolution was passed at the session of 6 February 1845, but the prisoners were never moved, because the Council was dissolved in 1846 and the new councillors (vereadores) did not agree with the use that was intended for the house of the Angústias (‘sorrows’).

In an official letter addressed to the Funchal Municipal Council (Câmara Municipal do Funchal) on 31 March 1847, Councillor (conselheiro, honorary title of the royal council) José Silvestre Ribeiro, that benevolent civil governor, proposed that the gaol be set up in the former convent of São Francisco, that the town hall move into the house then serving as the gaol, and that the recolhimento (religious retreat house for women) for beggars be transferred to the house of the Angústias. These suggestions were not taken up. Much later, following a petition made on 17 May 1888, the Council obtained the use of the Fortress of the Pico (‘peak’) for 10 years for the provisional installation of the prisons. It never took advantage of this favour from the Government, however, because it lacked the means needed to build a structure fit to serve as the gaol of the judicial district (comarca).

Later it was proposed to move the gaol to the Lazareto de Gonçalo Aires (1897), to the Convento da Encarnação (Convent of the Incarnation) (1897), to the Fortress of the Pico (1909) and to the Seminary of Bom Despacho (Seminário do Bom Despacho) (1910). Obstacles arose to the realisation of all these projects, however, and so the prisoners remained in the house on the Largo da Sé, ‘that terrible focus of infection, that cemetery of living creatures, as Councillor José Silvestre Ribeiro called it in 1847.

Only after the closure of St Lazarus’s Hospital (Hospital de São Lázaro) on 5 June 1912 could the old project of giving Funchal a gaol in good condition finally be carried out. The Municipal Council resolved that the new establishment should be built on the land occupied by that hospital, and it pressed ahead with this decision so vigorously – towards the end work even went on at night to hasten completion – that on 29 November 1913 the prisoners were transferred to the new building intended for them. On that same day demolition began of the old building on the Largo da Sé, where the gaol of the judicial district had been housed for nearly a century.

It was Dr Fernando Tolentino da Costa, a member and later president of Funchal Municipal Council, who took the greatest interest in the building of the São Lázaro gaol and the demolition of the Largo da Sé building. It was thanks to his efforts and acknowledged zeal that these two improvements were carried out so quickly. The public celebrated the fall of the first stones of the old gaol with a few sprays of rockets, and everyone rejoiced at the disappearance of a building which not only failed to serve the purposes for which it had been intended but also considerably disfigured one of the most central spots in the city.