Drumond (João Pedro de Freitas Pereira)

He was the son of Captain José Luís de Freitas Silva Nunes and Dona Ana Inácia Caetano Drumond, and was born in Câmara de Lobos (‘seals’ den’) in 1760. He graduated as a bachelor (bacharel, university graduate) in law from the University of Coimbra (Universidade de Coimbra). He was the first president of the Society of Friends of the Sciences and Arts (Sociedade dos Amigos das Sciencias e Artes) and held the offices of market inspector (almotacé), chief health officer of the port (guarda-mor de saúde), councillor (vereador) of the Council of Funchal, acting juiz de fora (crown-appointed judge from outside the district) and member of the board of the Lancasterian School (Escola Lancasteriana). At its session of 18 October 1803 the Municipal Council (Câmara Municipal) resolved to commission him to write a report on the state in which the city had been left by the flash flood (aluvião) of that year, to be kept in the Council’s archive. He published in the Investigador Português a memoir entitled Noticias Mineralogicas da Ilha da Madeira, and wrote the Apontamentos Historicos e geographicos sobre a ilha da Madeira, the autograph manuscript of which is in the municipal library, as well as several articles published in O Patriota Funchalense (‘The Funchal Patriot’). He was an ardent constitutionalist, a distinguished lawyer and a man of considerable learning. He died without issue in March 1825. Among his contemporaries he was known by the nickname ‘Dr Piolho’ (‘Dr Louse’), because he was short in stature.