Duarte Pacheco

Duarte José Pacheco (19 April 1900 — 16 November 1943) was a Portuguese engineer, minister of public works and mayor of Lisbon who made major improvements to the civil infrastructure of Portugal as a minister of the Estado Novo regime. He is considered to be one of the most notable Portuguese politicians of the 20th century.

Early life Pacheco was born in Loulé in the Algarve region of Portugal. He was one of the youngest of four sons and seven daughters of José de Azevedo Pacheco, Police Commissioner of Loulé, and his wife Maria do Carmo Pontes Bota. His mother, from a rich family from Loulé, died in 1906, and the following year his father was transferred to Horta on Faial Island in the Azores, leaving the family in the Algarve, under the care of the eldest sister, Sofia. He would return to the Algarve but die in 1914. Duarte Pacheco was born on 19 April 1900 but, as a result of a bureaucratic error, his birth certificate recorded his year of birth as 1899. He never corrected this, joking that people already considered him too young for his job.

As there was no high school in Loulé, the family's children studied with private teachers. His brother Humberto also taught the rest of the family and under his tutelage Pacheco was able to gain admission to Faro Lyceum as a boarding student. While at this school he worked to pay the fees. He then entered the newly created Instituto Superior Técnico (IST: Higher Technical Institute – now part of the University of Lisbon) at the age of 17, living with Humberto. He graduated in electrical engineering in 1923. Considered to be a brilliant student, a year later he was hired as an assistant at IST and in 1925 he was already a full professor, teaching the subject of general mathematics. In 1926 he became interim director of IST and, in August 1927, was unanimously appointed as Director. One of his first acts was to present proposals for a new building.

Political career Pacheco was appointed as minister of public instruction in April 1928, but resigned in November of the same year. However, in that period he carried out a mission that would prove important in the history of Portugal, visiting António de Oliveira Salazar, then a professor in the University of Coimbra, to persuade him to return to the Portuguese capital, Lisbon to become minister of finance, a position he had held in 1926 for just five days before resigning when the conditions he proposed to control rampant overspending were refused. Pacheco's mission proved successful and Salazar again became minister of finance, being appointed as prime minister in 1932 and effectively becoming the country's dictator.

The social housing built while Pacheco was the minister is now considered by many to be an eyesore but at the time represented a major advancement in living conditions for poorer sections of the Portuguese population. The developments included those in Alvalade, Encarnação and Ajuda, all in Lisbon. Road developments supervised by Pacheco included roads between Lisbon and Vila Franca de Xira, Lisbon and the national stadium (the first motorway in Portugal), and the coast road between Lisbon and Cascais, known as the "Estrada Marginal". His ideas for motorway development stemmed from a visit in 1938 to Italy, while planning the Portuguese World Exhibition.