Antonio José de Ávila
António José de Ávila , first duke and first margrave (Marquês) of Ávila and Bolama (born May 8, 1806 in Faial, Azores ; † May 3, 1881 in Lisbon ), was a conservative politician from the time of the constitutional monarchy in Portugal. He was u. a. Finance minister, foreign minister and three times (1868, 1870 to 1871, 1877 to 1878) head of government of his country .
Life
At the age of 15, de Ávila enrolled at the University of Coimbra , where he studied philosophy . Since he was in opposition to the absolutist government of King Michael , he spent the years Michael ruled in Portugal in Paris where he studied medicine . During the Miguelists' War he went back to the Azores, his birthplace, where he supported the constitutionalists and became a successful local politician.
After the end of the war, he was elected to the Portuguese Parliament, the Cortes , for the first time in 1834 for the Azores . De Ávila was to sit as a member of the Cortes without interruption for 26 years. There he worked as a Cartist MP who was in sharp opposition to the Setembrists , who took power in 1836 ( September Revolution ). Towards the end of Setembrist rule, when Joaquim António de Aguiar took over government for the first time in 1841, de Ávila joined the government as finance minister. He kept this post in the governments of Costa Cabral (1842-1846) and Terceira , only when Saldanha took power in 1851, he resigned from this post. In 1857, in the government of the Duke of Loulé , he took over the post of finance minister again. When the de Aguiar government had to resign after the January riots in 1868, Ávila took over the post of prime minister for the first time.
As prime minister, de Ávila abolished a tax that had led to the January protests, but his government ran into financial difficulties that soon failed. He later held the post of finance minister again in various governments. Prime Minister again in 1870. In 1871 he was replaced by Fontes Pereira de Melo and took over the presidency of the second chamber of parliament from the Duke of Loulé. From 1877 to 1878, when Fontes had to resign because of great public dissatisfaction, de Ávila took over the government again, which he handed back to Fontes in 1878. In the same year he was made Duke of Avila and Bolama.
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Ávila, António José de |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Conservative politician from the time of the constitutional monarchy in Portugal |
| DATE OF BIRTH | May 8, 1806 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Faial, Azores |
| DATE OF DEATH | May 3, 1881 |
| Place of death | Lisbon |