Before the Cemetery was established the practice was to bury British dead in wooden boxes, often those previously used for the importation of sugar, in beaches at low tide, on the south bank of the River Tagus or, perhaps, in unconsecrated land in remote areas.

In 1654, with Portugal in the process of regaining its independence from Spain, a treaty was negotiated between the victor of the English Civil War, Oliver Cromwell, and King João IV.

[1][2][3] As a result of opposition from the Jesuits and the Portuguese Inquisition, nothing happened to establish a cemetery until 1717, when the British Consul, W. Poyntz, was able to report to London that he had obtained a perpetual lease on suitable land under the system of Emphyteusis.

The merchants who constituted the so-called British Factory had come to play a vital role in the Portuguese economy and then felt able to insist that the treaty be implemented.

The British wanted to create a separate entrance on the eastern side of the Cemetery but the Dutch consul, Daniel Gildemeester (1714-1793), had erected a large tomb to his son Jan who died at the age of 22 in 1778.

Harmonious relations were clearly eventually restored as Gildemeester and the Dutch financed half the cost of the Cemetery's mortuary chapel, which was completed in 1794.

Towards the end of the 18th century some Sephardis began to return, particularly those living in London and Gibraltar, as a result of the treaty between Britain and Portugal.

However, when a request was made in 1815 to erect a Jewish tombstone, the Society of Merchants and Factors, which had replaced the British Factory, decided that, from that time, only Christian tombs would be permitted.

In 1810, therefore, the British Government purchased an area of adjacent land somewhat larger than the existing Cemetery for the purpose of military burials.

The resident British built a wall between the two plots but this was removed in 1819 when the entire site passed into control of the Society of Merchants and Factors.

With active fundraising by the chaplain, Canon Thomas Godfrey Pembroke Pope, the present church, designed by architects in London, was consecrated in 1889.

Lisbon Council and the national government, represented by Duarte Pacheco, an engineer who had been appointed Minister of Public Works and Transport at the young age of 33, did not want to take much land from the Estrela Gardens to the south of the Cemetery so they planned to compulsorily purchase both corners of the southern zone of the Cemetery, which projected into the proposed route of the road.

British proposals for an alternative route were dismissed on the grounds that it would mean cutting down trees in the Estrela Gardens and would affect the symmetry of the original plan.

The new British Ambassador, Sir Ronald Hugh Campbell, who had a higher status than his predecessor, also became involved, writing to the Portuguese prime minister, António de Oliveira Salazar, but to no avail.

The municipality replied verbally with an offer of 5% of the British figure, having already agreed to carry out the movement of buildings and graves and wall reconstruction free of charge.

[9] The graves and monuments include good examples of Georgian, Regency, and Victorian architecture, as well as modern monuments: Many of those buried were poor soldiers and sailors, particularly of English but also Dutch origin, for whom there is no plaque or tombstone and, who, in many cases were not even recorded in the records, particularly between 1761 and 1763 at the end of the Seven Years' War, when British forces were in Lisbon.

In 1827 a British force commanded by Sir Robert Clinton landed in Lisbon in support of Queen Maria II in the Civil War against Dom Miguel.

Airmen heading to Gibraltar from Cornwall died when their planes crashed, while British ships were torpedoed in Portuguese waters.

The Commonwealth War Graves Commission maintains 26 World War II graves of members of the British Navy, Air Force and Army, as well those of the Royal Canadian Air Force, the Merchant Navy, and the British Overseas Airways Corporation.