Santiago Alba y Bonifaz
Spanish politician (1872–1949)
Santiago Alba y Bonifaz (23 December 1872, in Zamora – 8 April 1949) was a Spanish politician and lawyer. He served as Minister of the Navy, Minister of Education and Science, Minister of the Interior, Minister of Housing, and Minister of Foreign Affairs during the reign of Alfonso XIII.
Born to a middle class family with important political connections, he was the son of Obdulia Bonifaz (a relative of Manuel Ruiz Zorrilla) and of César Alba García Oyuelos, a prominent Valladolid lawyer. Alba grew up in Valladolid and studied at the university, receiving a law degree. He also began working for the La Opinión as editor-in-chief, and later bought the newspaper El Norte de Castilla in 1893, where he had also worked as a manager.
Upon the death of her husband, Alba's mother inherited an estate in Cantabria, in the town of Noja. When Alba became the first Marquis of Albaicín, the estate became the Palacio del Albaicín. In 1918, after suffering from an accident in which his car crashed into a tree, he spent some time there recuperating.
He married Enriqueta Delibes in 1897 and began his political career in the elections of 1901, as a representative of the party Unión Nacional, earning a seat in the Cortes as deputy for Valladolid province. He won the seat again in the 1903 elections—after switching to the Partido Liberal—but would give up his seat to become Subsecretary of the Presidency of the Council of Ministers, and in the elections of 1905, he would again give up his seat in order to become Governor of the Bank of Spain. In succeeding elections, which were held until 1936, he would again be elected deputy representing Valladolid, Granada, or Zamora provinces.
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Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 1, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q2746550. VIAF identifies the subject as 59074774. The Library of Congress control number is n85378744. 3 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1872, 1949, 1893 and 1918.
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This entry incorporates text from “Santiago Alba y Bonifaz” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.