Madeira: Women, History, Books and Places

History & Culture

With selection notes

The Beneficent Usurpers

Desmond Gregory

English · 1988 edition

An extensively researched account of nearly two centuries of British commercial and social influence on Madeira, tracing how resident merchant families informally “colonised” the island as a key staging post in transatlantic trade.

History & Culture

Journal of a Visit to Madeira and Portugal (1853–1854)

Isabella de França

English · 1970 edition

The illustrated travel journal of Isabella de França, wife of a London merchant of Madeiran origin — lost for nearly a century, then rediscovered — offering a vivid writer’s and watercolourist’s portrait of island life in 1853–54.

History & Culture

Scenes from the History of the Portuguese in Guyana

Mary Noel Menezes

English · 1986 edition

An illustrated history of the Madeiran Portuguese in British Guiana, who began arriving in 1835 to work on sugar plantations and later became a prominent merchant community.

History & Culture

The Quintas of Madeira

Marjorie Hoare

English · 2004 edition

An illustrated study of Madeira’s historic quintas — the grand manor-house estates of Funchal built by Portuguese aristocrats and British wine-merchant families — documenting their architecture, history and decline.