Prime Minister of Portugal. He was a Portuguese merchant, business administrator and politician. Tomé José de Barros Queirós was born in the village of Quintãs, Ílhavo, on February 2, 1872. A descendant through his mother's line of a family with great liberal traditions, he was the great-grandnephew of Judge Joaquim José de Queirós, grandfather of the writer Eça de Queirós, Tomé being his 4th cousin. He moved to Lisbon, starting to work at the age of 8 as a clerk in a commercial house, having grown up among the urban proletariat of the time. A self-taught man, it was only in the 1890s that he was able to enroll in the Elementary School of Commerce in Lisbon. He adhered to republicanism, becoming a member of the Portuguese Republican Party in 1888, quickly rising to top positions in that party's leadership. He would always remain in the ideological field of liberal republicans, militating in the various parties that occupied that region of the ideological spectrum. In 1890, he married Cristina Augusta Fernandes, with whom he had 4 children. Involved in workers' struggles supported by the republicans, he was one of the promoters of the creation of the Association of Night Clerks of Lisbon, linking himself to the press in this way, being the founder of "A Voz do Caixeiro" and collaborating in the periodical "O Caixeiro." Elected in republican lists, he was, between 1908 and 1911, president of the Parish Council of Santa Justa and councilor of the Municipality of Lisbon. Having shown great intelligence and a knack for business, in 1911 he ended up acquiring the José de Oliveira House, where he was a clerk. He soon revealed himself as one of the most successful merchants in Lisbon, entering financial circles. He was a board member of the Boror Company and co-founder and director of the company Portuguese Mutuality. Later, he would be named successively member, vice-president and president of the board of directors of the Portuguese Railways Company. He was also chairman of the Disciplinary Council of the Ministry of Finance. With the split of the Portuguese Republican Party after the proclamation of the Portuguese Republic in 1910, he joined the Unionist Party, where he militated between 1911 and 1919. Integrating the lists of that party, he was elected deputy by the circle of Lisbon, and later by Torres Vedras, occupying the positions as chairman of the Customs Reform and Tax Services Commission. He was also secretary-general and director-general of the Public Treasury, a position in which he was the main author of the 1911 tax reform, also collaborating in laws regarding the state budget. Following the revolution of May 14, 1915, he accepted the post of Minister of Finance, a position he held until June 18, 1916. Keeping himself in political activity, already in a period of degeneration of the First Portuguese Republic, when political instability and constant coups d'état made it impossible to train stable executives, he returned to the Government in the period between May 24 and August 30, 1921, as Prime Minister, accumulating with his former finance portfolio. His short term at the head of the Portuguese government was marked by the deep financial crisis of the state and by a desperate attempt to resort to external credit, through the contracting of a loan of 50 million dollars in the United States. This loan, announced as a savior measure by the republican leader Afonso Costa, ended up not materializing, which led to the fall of the Government and the discredit of the institutions of the First Republic, being one of the causes of the increase in social and political instability that would lead to the May 28, 1926 Revolution. In 1922 he was elected deputy for the Azorean circle of Horta, rejoining that same year for the circle of Lisbon. In 1923 he became a member of the Nationalist Republican Party, remaining in parliament until 1924, suspending his mandate, due to illness. He died in Lisbon on May 5, 1926, a victim of cancer, a few weeks before the May 28, 1926 Revolution, which put an end to the First Republic and installed the Military Dictatorship.