British Latin American - Chile

Chile

See also: English Chilean, British Chilean, Scottish Chilean, and Welsh Chilean

Chile currently the largest has population descendants of British in Latin America. The descendants of English, according to some estimates, would be between 350,000 and 420,000 people. Other books give more of 700,000 for the descendants of British settlers in Chile.

Chile, facing the Pacific Ocean, had a important British presence. Over 50,000 British immigrants settled in Chile from 1840 to 1914, an important number of them settled in Magallanes, especially the city of Punta Arenas when it flourished as a major global seaport for ships crossing the Strait of Magellan from the Atlantic to the Pacific ocean. Also, around 32,000 English of them settled in Valparaíso . That significantly influenced in the port city, which became practically a British colony during the last decades of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th C. However, the opening of the Panama Canal in 1914 and the First World War took many of them outside the city.

Some British Chileans are of Scottish and Scotch-Irish origins. Some Scots settled in the country's temperate climate and forested landscape with glaciers and islands, which reminded them of their homeland (the Highlands and Northern Scotland), while English and Welsh made up the rest. The Irish immigrants were frequently confused with the British, and arrived as merchants, tradesmen and sailors, settling along with the British in the main trading Cities and Ports.

The British founded the first football club in Valparaíso, and in Santiago sometime later, such as Santiago Wanderers, Everton and Prince of Wales Country Club, among others.

Chileans of British descent include former president; Patricio Aylwin, Benjamín Vicuña Mackenna; writer and politician; Alejandro Foxley, Pedro Dartnell, Claudio Bunster, Bernardo Leighton, Vivianne Blanlot, Agustín Edwards Mac Clure; Minister of Foreign Affairs; Jorge Edwards; former Minister of Foreign Affairs; Gustavo Leigh; member of the former Government Junta of Chile Roberto Elphick; Bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church; Juan Williams; commander-in-chief of the Chilean Navy at the beginning of the War of the Pacific; Patricio Lynch, William Thayer, Robert Winthrop Simpson, Juan Pablo Bennett, Alberto Blest Gana; writer members of the Edwards family; Hernán Somerville, banker Harold Mayne-Nicholls, president of ANFP and Chilean Football Federation; Mary Rose McGill, socialite, etc.