In Adelaide Cabete’s surgery, on this square, the National Council of Portuguese Women was born in 1914 — “the most important and longest-lasting Portuguese feminist association of the first half of the 20th century”. It had its headquarters here for 32 years.
Today: Praça dos Restauradores, 13Approximate location
Adelaide Cabete, an obstetrician and gynaecologist who qualified in 1900, opened a surgery in the Baixa in 1907 and, from 1910, here, at no. 13 Praça dos Restauradores, with her niece, the dentist Maria Brazão. She gave free consultations to poor women.1
In 1914, on her initiative, the National Council of Portuguese Women was born in the surgery. It presented itself as “a women’s institution, non-political and non-religious”, and sought to protect disadvantaged women and children and to end regulated prostitution. For the historian Rosa de Lurdes Correia, it was “the most important and longest-lasting Portuguese feminist association of the first half of the 20th century”. Its headquarters stayed here for 32 years.2
The Council published the Boletim Oficial (Official Bulletin) and the magazine Alma Feminina (Feminine Soul), edited by Maria Clara Correia Alves,3 and organised the feminist and education congresses of 1924 and 1928 in Lisbon. Women who would become figures of the opposition to the Estado Novo (“New State”) passed through it: Elina Guimarães, Isabel Aboim Inglez, Maria Alda Nogueira.2
The organising committee of the First Feminist and Education Congress, the first in the country, had its address here: the brochure announcing it, for March 1924, asked for papers to be submitted at the Council’s headquarters and for all correspondence to be sent to the committee at “Praça dos Restauradores, 13, 2.º”. The committee brought together ten women — Adelaide Cabete, Aurora de Castro e Gouveia, Angélica Viana Porto, Domingas Lazary Amaral, Albertina Gamboa, Laura Corte Real, Maria O'Neill, Deolinda Lopes Vieira, Vitória Pais Madeira and Elisa Lima — and two men, and most of the women also presented papers.10 The congress was held from 4 to 9 May, at the Mutual Aid Association of Commercial Employees.2 Other members of the Council brought papers to it, such as the teachers Ilda Pinto de Lima and Regina do Carmo, Julieta Ribeiro de Carvalho and Maria Isabel Correia Manso.9
With Maria Lamas as president, from 1945, the Council gained national prominence and opened branches around the country.5 In 1946 it moved to Amoreiras — where the police would close it the following year.2
O que ocupa hoje o n.º 13 da Praça dos Restauradores, e se o prédio é o mesmo (a paragem fica na praça).
O parentesco de Maria Brazão com Adelaide Cabete: sobrinha, segundo a Toponímia de Lisboa; irmã, segundo a NOVA FCSH e a Wikipédia.
As teses de Ilda Pinto de Lima, Regina do Carmo, Julieta Ribeiro de Carvalho e Maria Isabel Correia Manso só foram lidas na Wikipédia; a brochura de 1924 atribui «Bibliotecas infantis» e «Escolas ao ar livre», que a Wikipédia dá às duas primeiras, ao Instituto Feminino de Educação e Trabalho.
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11Isabel Lousada, Adelaide Cabete (1867–1935). Comissão para a Cidadania e Igualdade de Género (coleção «Fio de Ariana»); Repositório da Universidade NOVA de Lisboa (RUN), 2010 — consulted on 4 October 2026Dá o consultório de Adelaide Cabete na «Praça dos Restauradores, n.º 13, 2.º», morada que era também a da sede da Liga Portuguesa Abolicionista, e a da projetada Associação de Mulheres Universitárias («Praça dos Restauradores, 13, 2.º», segundo O Povo).
12Conselho Nacional das Mulheres Portuguesas (processo de associação do Governo Civil de Lisboa, PT/SGMAI/GCLSB/H-B/001/13330). Secretaria-Geral do Ministério da Administração Interna, arquivo do Governo Civil de Lisboa (Archeevo) — consulted on 4 October 2026Processo de 1914-04-24 a 1947-11-20 (93 f., caixa 734, cota antiga «1487/A. Extintas»). A descrição dá a data da constituição, 24 de abril de 1914; a sede na Rua da Ilha Terceira, n.º 44, rés-do-chão, e, «anteriormente», na Travessa da Fábrica das Sedas, n.º 1.
Coordinates: OpenStreetMap (Nominatim), consultado a 2 de outubro de 2026.
