Celebrating the Anglo-Portuguese News Legacy

The newspaper was founded by Major C.E. Wakeham with Luiz Marques as editor. Luiz Marques purchased the paper in 1954 with his wife Susan Lowndes Marques who avidly wrote for the paper, later assuming the role of editor once her husband passed away. Some years later The Anglo-Portuguese News (APN) was sold to British journalist Nigel Batley in 1980, until its somewhat mysterious closure in 2004, as there was no mention of this in the last newspaper published.

The APN served as a record for the British and other foreign communities in Portugal and is an invaluable resource for researchers and anyone writing about the British community and institutions in Portugal. According to the paper’s Wikipedia page which was written by a member of The British Historical Society of Portugal, contributors included Anglo-French historian, Elaine Sanceau, diplomat Marcus Cheke, who was attached to the British embassy in World War Two and Rose Macaulay, who wrote the book They Went to Portugal.

This now brings us to the present day, where Luiz Marques and Susan Lowndes Marques’s grandson, Filipe Lowndes Marques, in collaboration with The British Historical Society of Portugal, has recently decided to digitise the complete APN Archive.

Filipe Lowndes Marques started by kindly sharing, “My grandparents ran The APN from 1937 to 1980 and in recent years I realised that online there were very few mentions of the newspaper and it was all very isolated and certainly no way to access the newspaper unless you personally went to the British Library.”

“Knowing that The British Historical Society of Portugal had complete copies of the newspaper for its full existence, we had the idea with the Society that it could be interesting to digitise it and then make it available online. The British Historical Society has one of the best libraries of publications relating to Anglo-Portuguese links and at the moment it is housed next to the library of St. Julian’s School in Carcavelos. Also, one of the good side effects was to memorialise my grandparents.”

The Social Media of its Time

Filipe explained that The APN Archive serves for serious research on Anglo-Portuguese relations in the 20^th century but also more fun things such as announcements. “Any family with British links who would have been around Portugal in the second half of the twentieth century in all likelihood will find references to themselves. If you look in the announcements you would see things like Mr and Mrs so and so are going to visit their daughter in Canada for 2 weeks and will be coming back to their house in Monte Estoril on this date as well as special events.”

For a period of time, The APN had pages in Portuguese, which Filipe shared was because of the restrictions on foreign ownership in the newspaper with one of the requirements being that it had some content in Portuguese, particularly during the war. Filipe recalled that there is a section which is in half Portuguese and half English with the intention of teaching Portuguese to the British community called “Portuguese Back Chat” that ran from 1943 to 1957, that in some cases come across almost as comedy sketches.

APN’s significance during World War Two

Filipe told The Portugal News, “Well, during that period The APN received some support from the British government during the war. The APN’s claim to fame is that it was the only English language newspaper published continuously throughout the whole of the Second World War on the European continent and that it was mentioned in one of Goebbels' propaganda newspapers as Churchill’s mouthpiece in Lisbon.”

Launch of the APN Digital Archive

On 26 September, the launch of The APN Digital Archive event was held at St. Julian’s School, with participation from the British Ambassador to Portugal and Câmara Municipal de Cascais. The event was held in the hope of giving the newspaper some projection and to thank the sponsors personally for their support. “The digitalisation and then setting up the website did have a cost and our sponsors were kind enough to help support this whole project, which includes: The British Historical Society of Portugal, St. Julian’s School, Câmara Municipal de Cascais, the Garland Group, James Rawes Navegação, Lda, Symington Family Estates, WRVS, BP, The Royal British Club and the Anglican Church of St George and St Paul, Lisbon .”

Filipe concluded, “The sponsors can be divided into two blocks, with one being longstanding British Portuguese institutions whose development and progress can be followed through The APN and their history is very much linked to the history of the newspaper. Then we have corporate sponsors who are all Anglo-Portuguese companies that have historically always advertised in the newspaper and have always been very supportive of the Anglo-Portuguese link.”

To see the whole archive please visit https://www.angloportuguesenews.pt/.

Following undertaking her university degree in English with American Literature in the UK, Cristina da Costa Brookes moved back to Portugal to pursue a career in Journalism, where she has worked at The Portugal News for 3 years. Cristina’s passion lies with Arts & Culture as well as sharing all important community-related news.

Cristina da Costa Brookes