Susan Lowndes Marques

Susan Antonia Dorothea Priestley Lowndes Marques OBE (15 February 1907 - 3 February 1993) was a writer and journalist who became a leading figure in the British community in Lisbon, Portugal.

Family and early life Generally known as Susan Lowndes, or Susan Lowndes Marques after her marriage to the Portuguese, Luís Marques, she was born into a distinguished family. Her great, great-grandfather was the British scientist and philosopher Joseph Priestley, who was credited with the discovery of oxygen. Her grandmother was Bessie Rayner Parkes, a prominent British feminist and champion of women's suffrage. Her mother, Marie Belloc Lowndes, was a well-known writer of crime novels and biographies, best known for her novel, The Lodger, based on Jack the Ripper, which sold over a million copies and was made into a film by Alfred Hitchcock in 1926. Her uncle was the poet and novelist Hilaire Belloc.

Marriage and Lisbon Brought up in inter-war London, Susan Lowndes was therefore always surrounded by books and met many writers who visited the family home. Her father, Frederick Lowndes, worked as an editor for The Times. She was educated at St Mary's Convent, Ascot. On leaving school she did voluntary work and, for a time, ran an antique shop in London. In August 1938 she went with her father for a brief holiday in Lisbon, where she met Luís Artur de Oliveira Marques (1898-1976), an English-educated journalist. They were married in December of the same year in Westminster Cathedral in London and made their home in Lisbon, later moving to Monte Estoril.

Religious faith Susan Lowndes was awarded an OBE in 1975 for services to the British community in Lisbon. Someone with strong Catholic beliefs, she was, at the time of her death, the Lisbon correspondent of the London-based Catholic Herald and of the US Catholic News Service. She attached great importance to charity, believing that Christianity was lived in solidarity with the most vulnerable people. Hundreds of letters of thanks in her archives attest to the assistance she gave others. She worked voluntarily at the British Hospital in Lisbon and at St. Julian's International School, among several other organizations. Towards the end of her life she established the British Retirement Home in São Pedro do Estoril for British people in Portugal who had fallen on hard times. She also had a very developed sense of humour. Two days before her death, when she was offered oxygen in the hospital, she referred back to her great, great-grandfather's discovery of oxygen, saying, “Dear Doctor Priestley”.