Father of Typhoons – 2025.11.05

The Rui Cunha Foundation presents on Wednesday, November 5th at 7:00pm, a conference on “The ‘Father of Typhoons’: Ernesto Gherzi (1886-1973) and the Macao Meteorological Service, 1950-1954”, inserted in the History and Heritage Public Lectures series, an active partnership between FRC and USJ – University of Saint Joseph, Department of History and Heritage, Macau.

The session will feature guest speaker Priscilla Roberts, Associate Professor at the University of Saint Joseph, Macau, with a PhD in History from the King’s College in Cambridge, United Kingdom, who taught for many years at the University of Hong Kong. Since moving to Macau, she has developed a strong interest in the territory’s history, especially in terms of its global significance.

The topic of this lecture is a story deserving to be told. «Father Ernesto Gherzi, an eminent Jesuit meteorologist and specialist in typhoons, spent over four years in Macau in the early 1950s, living at the Seminary of St. Joseph and working as an Adjunct Director at the Macau Observatory. After almost thirty years working at the Zikawei Observatory in Shanghai, Gherzi was forced to leave China in 1949», in the aftermath of the People’s Republic of China foundation and the mass exodus of religious orders and foreign population.

Quite cleverly, «the Bishop of Macau, Dom Joâo de Deus Ramalho, and the Governor of Macau, Albano Rodrigues de Oliveira, saw Gherzi’s exile from Shanghai as an opportunity for their own city. For over four years, Gherzi—a striking personality who was something of a Renaissance man, an organist and composer who also wrote poetry—worked to upgrade the Macau Observatory’s facilities and local and international profile.  His efforts were a prominent feature of a programme of community improvements launched by Oliveira to demonstrate Portuguese confidence in Macau’s ability to survive and prosper», the USJ note further states.

Priscilla Roberts is a British historian who, throughout her academic career, has researched aspects of international transitions of power and the role of elites in the making of foreign policy in the United States, Britain, and the British dominions, by private individuals or through institutions. She has taught for many years at the University of Hong Kong, having held many grants and fellowships from bodies in Hong Kong, the United States, Britain, Canada, Australia, and Macau, where she currently resides. She has also extensive published work, with 32 single-authored books, as well as several journal articles and written chapters in co-authored books.

The lecture will be held in English with 1 hour duration.

Admission is free.

Don’t miss it!

For Macau, Further and Higher!

[Show as slideshow]