Our recent survey showed that our members would like more speakers and talks, and this was demonstrated by a really good turn out on Friday 14th November, when almost 40 members turned up at Gerrards Cross Community Association to listen to Gareth Morgan give his talk on the Welsh in Patagonia with slides showing the development of the colony and also from his more recent visits to the region.

Patagonia

Gareth’s father was a clergyman in Argentina, for the Welsh Colony based around the Chubut Valley, and his elder sister was born there.

Gareth started by telling us about the group of about 160, who left Wales to preserve their language and culture and to set up the colony in 1865.

Their ship grounded off Puerto Madryn, about 800 miles south of Buenos Aires, and the colonists had to shelter in caves and abandoned huts near the sea.

They were helped by the local Indians and eventually founded several settlements and small towns over the years, moving westwards to find better farming land and establishing towns such as Rawson, Trelew, Gaiman and Dolavon. In each they would preserve their Welsh identity and language.

Gareth’s father sailed out as a minister in about 1935 and travelled across the whole region – up to 900 miles – initially on horseback, and later by car.

Gareth and his sister returned to the region in 2007 and 2015 and found many people who remembered their parents. They were warmly welcomed by the local population and toured across the Chubut Valley from Rawson on the Atlantic coast to Gualjaina in the Andes where they found more history of the region.

I was surprised to hear that the community had some problem with bandits holding up trains and banks in the early part of the 20th Century – one member was reportedly shot dead by a member of Butch Cassidy’s gang during a robbery.

Gareth’s talk finished before five and we set off on our way home.

The Garden Room at the GX Community Centre was a good venue to hold a talk and we may well return there for future events.