Francisco Correia de Herédia, 1st Viscount of Ribeira Brava

His Lordship The Viscount of Ribeira Brava
Personal details
Born	Francisco Correia de Herédia Júnior (1852-04-02)2 April 1852 Ribeira Brava, Madeira, Portugal
Died	16 October 1918(1918-10-16) (aged 66) Lisbon, Portugal
Resting place	Prazeres Cemetery
Political party	Democratic Party (1912–1918) Portuguese Republican Party (1908–1912) Progressive Dissidence (1905–1908) Progressive Party (1890s) Regenerator Party (1880s)
Spouse	Joana Gil de Borja de Macedo e Menezes ​ ​ (m. 1871)​
Education	Higher School of Letters

Dom Francisco Correia de Herédia Júnior, 1st Viscount of Ribeira Brava (2 April 1852 – 16 October 1918) was a Portuguese nobleman, politician and a landowner.

Biography

Born into the family of an old Portuguese nobility hailing from Madeira, he was the only son of Don Antonio Correia de Herédia (1822-1897) and his wife and relative, Dona Ana de Bettencourt e Sá (b. 1820). The political career of the Viscount of Ribeira Brava was very eventful and reflects the instability that characterised Portuguese politics at the end of the 19th century; he occupied several public offices, incluing that of member of parliament, mayor, and civil governor of the districts of Beja, Bragança and Lisbon. Initially aligned with the conservative-leaning Regenerator Party, he grew increasingly disenchanted with the Constitutional Monarchy, and ended up playing an important role in the events that revolutionised the political scene of the time: joining José Maria de Alpoim's Progressive Dissidence and later the Portuguese Republican Party, actively conspiring in the Municipal Library Elevator Coup and the Lisbon Regicide, and participating in the Republican Revolution in 1910. He remained politically active during the First Portuguese Republic, within the dominant Democratic Party, but was persecuted by the Sidonist government following the December 1917 coup d'état: he was killed in suspicious circumstances during a shootout in Lisbon, while being transferred to another prison along with other political prisoners.

Personal life

He married in 1871 Dona Joana Gil de Borja de Macedo e Menezes (1851–1925), a wealthy heiress from the Alentejo, the daughter of Dom Sebastiâo Gil Tojo de Borja de Macedo e Meneses (1802-1863) and his wife, Dona Mariana da Assuncâo da Gama Lobo Pimentel Guiâo (1819-1897). They had one son Dom Sebastiao-Sancho Gil de Borja de Macedo e Meneses de Herédia (1876-1958). The Viscount of Ribeira Brava is the great-great-grandfather in the male line of Dona Isabel-Inés de Castro Curvelo de Herédia, married to Duarte Pio, Duke of Braganza, the current pretender to the defunct throne of the Kingdom of Portugal.