Piedras De Afilar, Oliver Dawe: Hardback: 1st Edition: 1988: Botany

Piedras De Afilar: The Unfulfilled Dream of a Scottish Botanist in South America

By Oliver Dawe.

Published by Charles Skilton Ltd, Haddington, 1988. First edition. Hardback cover with dustjacket (unclipped), 167 pages. Black & white photos and illustrations.

Condition

Overall fair condition - see photos. Some wear to edges/corners/surface of dustjacket. Foxing to head and fore edge. No names or writing.

This is the story of John Gillies, M.D., who after serving in the Royal Navy during the Napoleonic wars developed tuberculosis and went to South America to recover his health at an important stage of Argentina's development as an independent republic. He lived for eight years in Mendoza and during this time interested himself in botany and educating the young. With the idea of forming an agricultural colony from Great Britain, he purchased a vast area of land to the south of Mendoza. He returned to Edinburgh in 1828 and worked on his extensive botanical collection but was unable to develop the colonisation project. After his death, his heirs spent many years establishing title to the land, eventually obtaining possession. 

The Piedras de Afilar Land Company was formed in London in 1897 but due to various circumstances the colonisation envisaged by Doctor Gillies never materialised. "The whole when united will form an extent of country greater than the largest county in Great Britain and singularly adapted for its climate, situation and other advantages for the establishment of a prosperous colony from Great Britain." Gillies to his mother, 1825 

The author was born in Perth, Scotland, in 1922 and finished his schooling at George Watson's College in Edinburgh. He was then articled to a chartered accountant but his studies were interrupted by war service in the Royal Navy and it was not until 1948 that he was admitted to the Society of Accountants in Edinburgh. A year later he joined Royal Dutch/Shell and was posted to Buenos Aires where he met and married a grand-daughter of Annie Jane Fraser, one of the heirs to Piedras de Afilar. Leaving Argentina in 1955 he subsequently worked in Trinidad Puerto Rico, Bolivia and Venezuela before returning to headquarters in London in 1970. Since his retirement his time has been divided between his home in Surrey, and Scotland, Argentina and Florida.

(Bindery)