Augusto Barcia y Trelles (5 March 1881 – 19 June 1961) was a Spanish politician, several times member of the Congress of Deputies, who served as acting Prime Minister of Spain from 10 May 1936 to 13 May 1936 due to former PM Manuel Azaña being elected as President of the Republic.
[2] Barcia, of firm Europeanist convictions and favorable to the Allies in the course of the World War I, would publish during the conflict a good number of articles and chronicles in El Liberal, newspaper of which he would also become director in 1914.
[11][12] With a view to the November 1933 elections, he forged an alliance between Republican Action and Lerroux's Radical Party in the province of Almería, managing to obtain a seat.
[14] He would defend Lluís Companys and other members of the Generalitat of Catalonia for their participation in the proclamation of the Catalan State in October 1934.
[16] After the victory obtained by the Popular Front coalition, on February 19 he was appointed Minister of State in the cabinet presided over by Manuel Azaña.
[19] After the Civil War, in July 1936, he assumed the post of Minister of the Interior in the very brief government headed by Diego Martínez Barrio.
[23] Since 1941 he was president of the Patronato Hispano-Argentino de Cultura, developing a feverish activity as a writer and lecturer.21 In parallel, he would also collaborate actively with the Republican institutions in exile: he was part of the central board of Acción Republicana Española, at the same time he served as delegate in Argentina of the Junta Española de Liberación.
Having been initiated in the Madrilenian lodge Ibérica in 1910, he developed an important work in the Masonic institution to the point that he was elected Grand Master of the Gran Oriente Español in 1921.
[29] he was elected Sovereign Grand Commendator of the Supreme Council of the 33rd Degree for Spain of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, a position he held until 1933, year in which he resigned because he understood that Freemasonry should be separated from any political activity, arguing his resignation as follows: "I'm returning to the active life of politics and I'm going to join a party.
My significance in the Order, my history in the high position that you've honored me with and that for so many years I carried out, force me to resign it with irrevocable character.
I want, above all, to be consequent with my conduct and my ideas, keeping at all times separated from the Institution any partisan influence, any suspicion of political interference".