| Sumario: | Fernando Cadalso and Manzano (1859-1939) was one of the most important Spanish criminal lawyers of the first half of the 20th century. He had a long and prolific career in the prisons field: director of several prisons (The Model Prison of Madrid, amongst others); General Surveyor of Prisons during twenty five years (the third most important position, under the Minister of Grace and Justice and the General Director); representative of Spain in four international prison congresses; he established the progressive system in prisons, which lasted until the sanction of the Prison General Organic Law in 1979; he carried out field trips in several European nations and in the United States of America, from which he imported the model of the reformatory for adults established in Ocaña (province of Toledo); he collaborated in the bill of probation; he was the Head of the Criminology School; and his resume still goes on. Shortly before retirement, during Primo de Rivera’s Military Directory, he was in charge of the Ministry of Grace and Justice. Throughout his life, Cadalso attempted to raise awareness both in society and public authorities on the importance of the prison reform, the welfare of prison populations (by means of work, education and religion), and the enhancement of corps of prisons officers (labor stability, wages increase, entry by competitive examination, seniority promotion). He promoted this task in four fields: 1) Administrative: through his performance in the prisons field; 2) Intellectual: writing in scientific magazines and newspapers, creating his own Prisons Magazine and publishing several papers; 3) Social: he dictated conferences in union and cultural centers and created and participated in several organizations – Association for Prison Studies and Rehabilitation of Offenders, Social Reform Institution, Assistance Commission to Alienates, etc. Finally, 4) Political: through the links established with the ruling elite –specially with Eduardo Dato Iradier and Julián García San Miguel, Marqués de Teverga-. Notwithstanding the huge work carried out during half a century to reform the Spanish prison system, Cadalso’s figure has not been studied in depth by the law and social historiography. Therefore, this biographical work attempts to reconstruct his track in the Spanish prison administration, by means of file documentation never searched before and edited sources barely used, taking into account: 1) The transformations and contradictions in his practice and thinking; 2) The ideas taken from the Italian criminal positivism; 3) His field trips and his attendance to international scientific meetings; 4) His proposals in matters such as the anarchism problem, police reforms, identification of offenders, etc.; 5) His commitment almost solitarily to the U.S. prison model; 6) Creation of institutions: the reformatory for adults in Ocaña, Alicante and Segovia, the progressive system, probation; and finally 7) His genuine contribution and his legacy to the Spanish prison system. We hope this work may allow reconstructing the prison law culture during the period covering from the Restoration to the Second Republic (paramount period, barely approached by the law and social historiography) and de-constructing some tales firmly grounded, particularly that relating the practice of prison reforms with the installation of progressive governments (First and Second Republic) and, on the contrary, deterioration of the prison population with the arrival of conservative administrations to the power during the reign of Alfonso XIII and Primo de Rivera’s Military
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