In the gymnasium of this secondary school, on 18 May 1958, Humberto Delgado held a presidential campaign rally, and the police violence was repeated afterwards. In 1945, it was here that the students from the colonies overthrew the board imposed on their House.
The Liceu de Camões secondary school opened on 16 October 1909, in Largo do Matadouro Municipal, amid criticism that it was far away and hard to reach: three years later, the area was still desolate, with only the Slaughterhouse and the School of Veterinary Medicine nearby. Among the many who passed through it were Álvaro Cunhal, Marcelo Caetano and the philologist Lindley Cintra.3
In 1945, at a general meeting held at the school, the majority of the members of the House of the Students of the Empire overthrew its first board, which had been appointed by the Ministry of the Colonies.4
On 18 May 1958, in the middle of the presidential campaign, Humberto Delgado spoke at a rally in the school’s gymnasium; the text of the speech is kept among Manuel Mendes’s papers, at the Casa Comum.1 In the words of the journalist João Paulo Guerra, the scenes of police violence that had greeted the general’s arrival in Lisbon “were repeated days later, after Humberto Delgado’s rally at the Liceu Camões”.2
Today it is the Escola Secundária de Camões (Camões Secondary School), and the building has been a Monument of Public Interest since 2012.3
At a general meeting at the school, the members of the House of the Students of the Empire overthrow the board appointed by the Ministry of the Colonies.
18 May 1958
Humberto Delgado’s rally in the school gymnasium.
2012
The building is listed as a Monument of Public Interest.
On 28 May 1911, the São Jorge de Arroios polling station was set up here. It was there that the doctor Carolina Beatriz Ângelo, registered by order of a judge, became the first woman to vote in Portugal.
Headquarters of the Portuguese Women’s Association for Peace, which from 1935 to 1952 brought women together for peace and for their rights — from Maria Lamas, its president, to Stella Piteira Santos, Isabel Aboim Inglez and Maria Alda Nogueira. The Minister of the Interior dissolved it in 1952.
Created by the regime in 1944 to foster “imperial unity” among students from the colonies, it became a school of opposition and anti-colonialism: Amílcar Cabral, Agostinho Neto and Alda do Espírito Santo passed through here. The PIDE closed it in 1965.
In this republican centre on Calçada de Arroios, while the monarchy still ruled, Maria Veleda set up free evening courses to teach women to read and write; in 1907, the Portuguese Group for Feminist Studies gave classes here to illiterate women.
WomenRepublic
Notes on the sources1
Whether the police violence that João Paulo Guerra places “after Humberto Delgado’s rally at the Liceu Camões” was on 18 May 1958, or whether there was more than one campaign meeting at the school.
Do you know more, or do you have a document? Tell us.
