Charles Amherst Milward

Milward (1859-1928) settled in the colony in January 1898 after the shipwreck of the steamship Mataura at Desolation Island. From 1903 to 1915, he was vice-consul and then consul for Great Britain. He founded the "Lion and Beisel" society, which initiated the Milward engineering and foundry. He lived on Avenida España in the mansion known as "El Castillo" and passed away on December 7, 1928.

On a trip to Última Esperanza, he made contact with Alfred Konrad, the shepherd who, along with Eberhard, discovered the Milodon Cave. Together, and without Eberhard’s consent, they extracted the remains of the Milodon and sold them to the London Museum for 400 pounds sterling.

From 1977 onwards, Milward was named by his great-nephew Bruce Chatwin in his book In Patagonia, where the author describes a journey to Patagonia undertaken in 1974, in search of his family history and its relation to the remains of the prehistoric animal, of which there were 10 cm skin remnants in his home.

Chatwin, a travel journalist for the Sunday Times, was well-known in England and died at the age of 48, ten years after the success of his bestseller, leaving behind a legacy of books that became very fashionable, especially among young people wanting to venture into Patagonia.

Tourism experts indicate that his works were one of the main causes of the increase in tourists to the Magallanes Region during the 1980s.