Declassified file reveals Chilean president’s British connections
Plans by the UK government to welcome President Patricio Aylwin of Chile with a family tree showing his Welsh roots hit a snag when a genealogist discovered that his great grandfather wasn’t Welsh, according to a newly declassified file.
The file, which has just been released by The National Archives, records efforts by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) to research Aylwin’s heritage for a state visit in 1991.
Aylwin’s great grandfather Richard Patrick Aylwin (who later changed his name to Ricardo Camilo Aylwin) emigrated to Chile in 1833 and became British vice-consul at the port of Constitución. Aylwin believed his family to be Welsh.
A letter in the file, numbered FCO7/8013, from 7 November 1990 by private secretary SL Glass says: “President Aylwin is proud of his origins, and his trip will include a visit to Cardiff.
“We believe that an imaginative gift to mark President Aylwin’s visit would be a family tree, and we are looking into the possibility of producing one.”
The year before the visit, Aylwin had become Chile’s first democratically elected president following the 16-year dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet.
The FCO’s Latin America Department commissioned Timothy Duke of the College of Arms, England’s official heraldic authority, to research his tree.
Duke told Who Do You Think
You Are? Magazine: “I think this is probably the most unusual case I’ve ever had.”
Using wills, parish registers, marriage licences and other genealogical resources, Duke proved that the Aylwins were English – not Welsh.
“They turned out to be tallow chandlers in London and then they were yeoman farmers in Sussex, where Aylwin is quite a common name,” Duke said.
Richard Aylwin’s father, Robert
Patrick Aylwin, was baptised in Haslemere in Surrey in 1762.
Another document, marked “Restricted”, says: “Apart from the family’s tradition, the only evidence which may link the Aylwins with Wales is a letter sent to the Chilean Embassy here by a well-wisher in Wales.”
Despite the unexpected family history discovery, UK Prime Minister John Major still referred to Aylwin’s ancestry while giving a toast welcoming him to the country.
He said that the president’s British ancestry was “well established”, and presented the tree that Duke had drawn up.
Duke also accompanied Aylwin on a visit to the villages of Treyford and Didling in Sussex, where the president visited the graves of his ancestors and met his Aylwin relatives.
“He just seemed delighted to be back in a county from which his forebears had come, and to discover the truth.”
The file also contains letters to the Chilean Embassy from Britons
county ‘He was delighted to be in a come’ from which his forebears had
who shared Aylwin’s surname.
Fenella Aylwin, who was attending North Nibley Church of England Primary School in Gloucestershire, wrote: “I would be most grateful if you could send me details and a picture of your president together with interesting facts and pictures of your country.”
The schoolgirl’s letter had a postscript: “My headmaster keeps calling me President of Chile.”
Fenella Aylwin, now aged 40, told us that she is delighted the letter has been rediscovered.
She still has the information that the embassy sent her, and her family have visited the Aylwins of Chile.
“I found some fame when I was young, and I remember repeating it to various people throughout my life.”