Prestage, Edgar, 1869-1951, Professor of Portuguese, historian

Person

Prestage, Edgar, 1869-1951, Professor of Portuguese, historian

1869-1951

Born in Manchester, 1869; his interest in Portugal arose from reading adventure stories, particularly of Vasco da Gama's voyage to India; while at school at Radley, began to study Portuguese; converted to Roman Catholicism, 1886; first visited Portugal, 1891; second class in modern history, Balliol College Oxford, 1891; admitted in 1896 and practised as a solicitor in his father's firm, Allen, Prestage & Whitfield, at Manchester until 1907; often visited Lisbon, mainly for historical research, and befriended several prominent Portuguese scholars, 1891-1906; elected to the Portuguese Royal Academy of Sciences; in Lisbon, introduced to the salon of Dona Maria Amália Vaz de Carvalho, a distinguished writer and widow of the Brazilian poet Gonçalves Crespo, whose daughter he married, 1907; later lived in Lisbon; pursued research in the Portuguese state and private libraries; a monarchist, never reconciled to the republican regime until the advent of Dr Salazar; press officer at the British legation in Lisbon, 1917-1918; Camoens Professor of Portuguese, King's College London, 1923-1936; engaged in little teaching and mostly in research, arranging periodical public lectures on Portuguese themes; delivered the Norman MacColl lectures at Cambridge, 1933; lecture on the Anglo-Portuguese Alliance to the Royal Historical Society, 1934; elected Fellow of the British Academy, 1940; Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society; grand officer of the Order of São Tiago; corresponding member of the Lisbon Academy of Sciences, the Portuguese Academy of History, and the Lisbon Geographical Society; in his later years, concerned with spiritual matters rather than work; died in London, 1951. Publications include: translation, from the French, of Letters of a Portuguese Nun: Marianna Alcoforado (1893); with (Sir) C R Beazley, translated for the Hakluyt Society the chronicler Azurara (2 volumes, 1896, 1899); biography, in Portuguese, of the writer D Francisco Manuel de Mello (Coimbra, 1914); published diplomatic correspondence relating to the Portuguese Restoration of 1640, including (collaboratively) that of João F Barreto, Relação da Embaixada a França em 1641 (Coimbra, 1918) and of F de Sousa Coutinho, Correspondência Diplomática (Coimbra, volume i, 1920; volume ii, 1926; volume iii, 1950); Diplomatic Relations of Portugal with France, England and Holland from 1640 to 1668 (Watford, 1925 and Coimbra, 1928); Afonso de Albuquerque (1929); The Portuguese Pioneers (1933); Portugal: a Pioneer of Christianity (1933); lecture on the Anglo-Portuguese Alliance to the Royal Historical Society included in the society's Transactions , 1934; numerous articles in Portuguese historical reviews; contributed chapters to several publications; compiled a bibliography on Portugal and the War of the Spanish Succession (1938); published various Lisbon parish registers.

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Further information is available at the National Archives (F48926)