Edgar Prestage (1869-1951)

Edgar Prestage was born on 20 July 1869 in High Wycombe. Educated in the colleges of Oxford, he converted to Catholicism when he was 16 years old. After the British Ultimatum, he visited Portugal in 1891. This was to be the first of many visits, during which he did extensive historical research in the national archives. He was elected member of the Academy of Sciences of Lisbon during the 1890s, although he had not produced any significant work at the time. In 1907, he married Cristina, the only daughter of Amália Vaz de Carvalho, widow of the Portuguese-Brazilian poet Gonçalves Crespo. During the last years of World War I, he was cultural attaché of the British embassy in Lisbon. He remarried in 1923, five years after the death of his first wife. His second wife was Victoria Cobb, whose father had close ties with the city of Porto. In that same year, he also became professor of Portuguese and Camões at Kings College, University of London, a position that he held until 1936. During this time, he developed and published work on Portuguese literature and history. Edgar Prestage was a pioneer in drawing attention to Portuguese and Brazilian studies in the United Kingdom. He died on 10 March 1951.

Bibliography:

Boxer, Charles R., "Edgar Prestage 1869-1951", Proceedings of the British Academy, 1958, Londres, XLIV, pp. 199-205.

Translated by: Rosa Simas