Who Was Who in Gzira: The People Who Made the Town

Part of Gzira Histories, a continuing series on the town’s past.

A reference to every person who appears in the series, grouped by period, with a line or two on who they were and a link to where their story is told. Several have streets named after them; a few have nothing but this.

In short: the island was shaped by Grand Masters de Vilhena and Lascaris and the engineers De Tigné and Mondion; the town by two parish priests named Manché, the stadium-builder Meme Scicluna and the benefactor Bert Grixti; and its identity by Baron Kelinu Vella Haber, who obtained its coat of arms in 1970.

The Order and the island

António Manoel de Vilhena (1663–1736). Portuguese Grand Master who built Fort Manoel from 1723 and gave his name to it, the island and, at one remove, the town. Also built the Manoel Theatre in Valletta. Part one.

Giovanni Paolo Lascaris. Grand Master under whom the Order acquired the island in 1643 and built the permanent Lazzaretto. Part one.

Verdala. Grand Master who set up the first, temporary quarantine hospital on the islet during the plague of 1592.

Nicolas Cotoner. Grand Master who enlarged the Lazzaretto after the plague of 1675–76.

De Tigné and Charles François de Mondion. The French military engineers behind Fort Manoel. Mondion (1681–1733) supervised the works, probably designed the chapel, and is buried in its crypt. Part one.

Fra Luc de Boyer d’Argens. French knight and Commander of Artillery who kept a summer villa in Gzira from about 1780. Rue d’Argens is named after him; his Venetian cannon is in the Royal Armouries at Leeds. Part two.

Baron Testaferrata and Fra Nikola Butiu. Paid for and oversaw the widening of the coast road in 1796, commemorated by the Fawwara Gate. Part two.

Mattew Pulis. Conspirator against the French, executed in Palace Square in January 1799 with Dun Mikiel Xerri and forty-three others. Part six.

Nazju Ellul. Birgu boatman shot by the French in February 1799 as a supposed traitor, and later recognised as a patriot. Part six.

The British

Sir Charles Cameron. First British Civil Commissioner of Malta, 1801. Local sources also call him Sir James; Triq Cameron carries the name. Part six.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge. The poet, Public Secretary in Malta under Sir Alexander Ball in 1804–05. Triq Coleridge. Part six.

Sir Frederick Ponsonby, Sir Henry Bouverie, Sir Patrick Stuart and Sir William Reid. Governors of Malta, each with a Gzira street. Bouverie enlarged the Lazzaretto; Stuart built the road that became Rue d’Argens. Part six.

John Henry Newman. The future cardinal, who served quarantine in the Lazzaretto in 1832–33. Part one.

Lord Byron, Sir Walter Scott, Benjamin Disraeli and William Thackeray. Among the travellers quarantined on Manoel Island. Part one.

Eric Brockman. Royal Navy captain of HMS Phoenicia who tried to rebuild the fort chapel after the war, when workmen reported a ghostly knight in the crypt. Part one.

The founders of the town and parish

Chevalier Jacob Tagliaferro. Built the first villa of consequence on the Gzira shore in the nineteenth century. Part two.

Dun Vinċenz Manché. Parish priest of Stella Maris, 1879–1918, to whom the stone of 1902 was brought; brother of Dun Anton. Part two.

Dun Anton Manché (1869–1935). Born in Birkirkara, served Gzira from 1902 and was its first parish priest, 1921–1935. Built the church, lobbied for electricity, water and drainage, and is called the Father of Gzira. The primary school bears his name. Part two.

Karmnu Brincat. Owner of the bar on Triq Manoel who refused to open on 10 July 1902. Part two.

William Walls, Charles Thurbull and John Packhun. The British sailors who threw the stones. Part two.

Bert (Albert) Grixti. Benefactor who funded Gzira’s first chapel and built the Chapel of the Redeemer and a convent on Triq San Albert, which is said to honour him as well as the saint. Part five.

Major Ġużeppi Muscat. Donated the land for the parish church. Part two.

Antonio Sammut, ‘iċ-Ċirwiel’. Master builder of British barracks who built the parish church at cost, with the builder Gejtu Sciberras and the architect Francesco Saverio Caruana. Part two.

Carmelo Pace. Sailor who vowed a statue to the new parish if he survived drowning; it was made in Lecce in 1924. Part five.

The builders of the twentieth-century town

Carmelo ‘Meme’ Scicluna (1887–1952). Built the Empire Sports Ground (1922) and the Empire Stadium (1933), co-founded the Mount Carmel band and was its first president. Pjazza Meme Scicluna. Part five.

Baron Pietro Paolo Testaferrata Moroni Viani (1886–1958). Charitable nobleman on whose land the stadium stood. Triq Moroni. Part six.

Harold J. Borg (1908–1981). Architect of the Orpheum Theatre, designed at twenty-four. Part five.

Luke V. Gauci and Antonio Grech Dimech. Founder and architect of the Wembley ice-cream factory, 1937. Part five.

The Busuttil family. Owners of Emmanuel Studio on the Strand, photographing the town since about 1935. Part five.

The war and after

Dun Carlo Manché (1905–1950). Parish priest 1935–1950. Led shelter-digging in 1941, served the Victory Kitchens, fought the prostitution trade, co-founded the band and died with almost nothing. Triq Carlo Manché; bust beside the church. Part three.

Dr Turu Colombo (1905–1978). Doctor who dug shelters with Manché, Minister of Finance from 1947, then a Franciscan friar ministering to sixteen thousand Maltese in Sydney. Part three.

St George Preca (1880–1962). Founder of the MUSEUM and Malta’s first canonised saint; opened Gzira’s catechism centre in 1934. Part eight.

Patist Pantalleresco. The baker who rented Preca his rooms; his sons Pawlu, Karmenu and Duminku were among the first bandsmen. Part eight.

Dun Pawl Galea (1899–1970). Gozitan parish priest 1951–1966 who gave the church its door, floor, bells and clock. Part eight.

Ganni Vassallo. Owner of the Blue Haven bar, who paid for the church’s main door in 1951. Part eight.

Gilardu Cristiano and Carmelo G. Borg. The band’s first music teacher and its bandmaster from 1953. Part eight.

Baron Kelinu Vella Haber (1913–2014). Gozitan-born dramatist and broadcaster who obtained Gzira’s coat of arms in 1970 and chose its motto, Recte Floreat. Part eight.

Tony Carr (1927–2026). Valletta-born drummer who learned jazz in the harbour bars during the war and became a leading London session player. Not a Gzira man, but the best illustration of what the fleet years did for Maltese music. Part four.

Frans Galea (1945–1994). Sculptor of Ċrieki on the Strand, 1984. The walk.

Those with streets of their own

Luqa Briffa. Militiaman of the Dejma in the Great Siege of 1565. Part six.

Ganni Bencini (1889–1981). Co-founder and first secretary of the Labour Party, 1920, and founder of Melita Amateurs. Part six.

Turu Rizzo (1894–1961). Long-distance swimmer who set a world record of 68 hours and 18 minutes. Part six.

Giacinto Tua (d. 1949). Playwright and founder of the company Les Amateurs. Part six.

Edgar Bernard (1886–1931). Colonial administrator, Pasha in Egypt, and Commissioner of the Scouts of Malta, who retired to Villa Portelli. Part six.

Patri Anastasju Cuschieri (1876–1962). Carmelite poet and philosopher, very likely the namesake of Triq Cuschieri. Part six.

Frequently asked questions

Who is the most famous person from Gzira?

Within the town, Dun Carlo Manché, parish priest from 1935 to 1950, is the most revered figure: he led shelter-digging in 1941, campaigned against the prostitution trade, and died with almost no possessions. Meme Scicluna, who built the Empire Stadium, and Baron Kelinu Vella Haber, who obtained the town's coat of arms, are also widely remembered.

Who built the Empire Stadium in Gzira?

Carmelo 'Meme' Scicluna (1887–1952), on land leased from his brother-in-law Baron Pietro Paolo Testaferrata Moroni Viani. He opened the Empire Sports Ground in 1922 and the rebuilt Empire Stadium in 1933, and Pjazza Meme Scicluna is named after him.

Who was Dun Anton Manché?

The first parish priest of Gzira, from 1921 to 1935, born in Birkirkara in 1869. He served the area from 1902, oversaw the building of the parish church, lobbied for the town's first electricity, water and drainage, and is called the Father of Gzira. The town's primary school bears his name.

Know someone who should be here? This list grows. Sources for every entry are on the series index.

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