Edwards (entrepreneurial family)

The Chilean Edwards family has produced a number of banking and media entrepreneurs , writers and diplomats.

Family history

The ancestor George ("Jorge") Edwards Brown immigrated in 1804 as a ship's doctor from Great Britain and had Scottish ancestors. His son Agustín Edwards Ossandon, like his father, invested in silver mines. He founded several banks, participated in the construction of the first railways in Chile, and traded in raw materials. At the time of his death, he had earned 25 million pesos and was considered the world's most important copper trader.

With the purchase of Chile's oldest surviving and most influential newspaper, El Mercurio, by Augustín Edwards Ross, the Edwards family was able to expand its economic and political influence. The Edwards are known well into the 21st century for their important role in the banking sector (e.g. Banco Edwards Citi ) and as owners of numerous Latin American newspapers and media.

Known family members

• George Edwards Brown (1780–1848), ship's doctor, entrepreneur and politician
• Agustín Edwards Ossandón (1815–1878), entrepreneur, founder of several banks, silver, copper and nitrate trade
• Agustín Edwards Ross (1852–1897), entrepreneur and politician, in 1880 bought El Mercurio, published in Valparaiso
• Agustín Edwards MacClure (1878–1941), son of AE Ross, entrepreneur, diplomat and politician, President of the League of Nations (1922–1923) and founder of the Santiago edition of El Mercurio
• Joaquín Edwards Bello (1887–1968), great-grandson of GE Brown, writer and journalist
• María Edwards MacClure de Errázuriz (1893-1972), the sister of AE MacClure, was a diplomatic widow in Paris with the Resistance . She was named Righteous Among the Nations for saving Jewish children
• Agustín Edwards Budge (1899–1954), son of AE MacClure, entrepreneur
• Agustín Edwards Eastman (1928), son of AE Budge, entrepreneur
• Jorge Edwards Bello , (1931), farmer, lawyer, journalist, diplomat
• Jorge Edwards Valdés, (1931) novelist, winner of the 1999 Cervantes Prize

literature

• Article on family members in Salvatore Bizzarro: Historical dictionary of Chile , Scarecrow Press, 2005, ISBN 0810840979 , p. 248 ff.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ "Entregarán condecoración a chilena que salvó a niños judíos en París" (PDF; 218 kB), La Palabra Israelita of November 3, 2006.