Agustín Edwards Ossandón

Early life

Agustín Edwards was born on 2 April 1815α in La Serena, to Isabel Ossandón Iribarren and George Edwards Brown, a British-born Chilean doctor, businessperson, politician and founder of the Edwards family. His father migrated to Northern Chile in 1807 where he married.

Career

From the age of 15, Edwards became involved in the family business. At the age of 19, he started to manage the silver smelting operations owned by his father in the cities of Vallenar and Freirina. In 1837, by the age of 22, he became independent and moved to the city of Copiapó, with a small capital he had managed to save.

In 1849 he founded the Bank of Valparaíso. He was an active promoter of the railroads in South America. He worked in the construction of the Copiapó-Caldera railway, the first Chilean railroad (and one of the first in Latin America) that was inaugurated on 25 December 1851. He then concentrated on the nitrate exploitation. He became president of the Nitrate Company, and began the studies for a railroad between Antofagasta and Bolivia.

By the 1860s Edwards was one of richest men in Chile, and was one of the country's most prominent 19th-century capitalists. Between 1870–1871, Edwards stockpiled vast quantities of Chilean copper, causing a 50% increase in the price of copper. In 1871, Edwards purchased the newspaper El Mercurio de Valparaíso.

Politics

Edwards was elected to the lower house of parliament on 1861, and then again in 1873. In 1876, he was elected a Senator for Valparaíso, a position he held until his death.

Personal life

In 1851, Edwards married his niece Juana Ross Edwards, a philanthropist. The couple had eight children, including the politician and businessperson Agustín Edwards Ross.

On 2 January 1878, Edwards died aged 62 in Limache.