us to visualize the movement of British engineers in Chile. 2 ...... Lloyd had an even greater tour of duty than was common for engineers at the time: France,.
BRITISH ENGINEERS IN SOUTH AMERICA DURING THE 19TH CENTURY 1 Nelson Arellano Escudero University Taparacá, Chile Summary A variety of antecedents allow for engineering to be considered an instrument of colonisation. In the case of the British Empire, further exploration reveals a significant edge of supporting data concerning the circulation of engineers in all the South Ame rican countries between 1860 and 1920, with ensuing dissemination and promotion of their ideology. Inspired by prosopography, an analysis was made of the available information regarding generations of professional engineers, with an appreciation of border crossings and emphasizing the Chilean situation that highlights evidence demonstrating the construction of multiple realities. Upon reflection of the above, it appears pertinent to conceive of British engineering in the nineteenth century specifically, and of those from the great cities of the northern hemisphere generally, as a transhumance cultural practice deserving deeper study to advance knowledge about the evolution of technology.
1. Engineering frontiers The need to explore engineering stereotypes within the element of energy, especially in the competing technologies of carbon and solar-based technologies of the nineteenth century, allows us to visualize the movement of British engineers in Chile 2 and throughout South America, which represents a supporting role in understanding how a technological evolution within cultural factors may influence the processes of artefact selection. 3 In cross-border situations, mobility and circulation of the subjects were captured in the minibiographies found in their obituaries, many times succinct while often flattering and favourable. Nevertheless, these characteristics have resulted in a valuable body of work from which it is possible to obtain significant leads and may even continue to be exploited via employment trajectories repeated in case after case, facilitating the elaboration of organizational social patterns and giving structure to cultural practices within a tightly condensed description. 4
1
English version of Arellano, Nelson. “Los ingenieros británicos en la Sudaméric a del siglo XIX”, Quipu, Revista Latinoamericana de Historia de las Ciencias y la Tecnología, vol. 16, núm. 1, enero-abril de 2014, pp. 39-62. 2 Nelson Arellano and Antoni Roca-Rosell, "British Engineering in Water Desalinization Using Solar Energy in Chile in the Nineteenth Century", Quipu, Latin American Journal of the History of Science and Technology, vol 15, No. 2, 2013, pp. 163-191 3 George Basalla, "The E volution of Tec hnology", Cambridge University Press, 1988; 2nd Edition, 2011, Editorial Crítica, Barcelona 4 Clifford Geertz, "The Interpretation of Cultures", Barcelona, Gedisa, 2003, p. 387
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One aspect of engineering duties to highlight is the way of life it represented. Giogio Agamben presented one appropriate pattern of analysis when he investigated how monastic life moulded cloistral communities, as evidenced in Regula Communis of San Francisco de Braga (Italy). In this document, dating from before 670 BCE, a pact was established whereby rules would be written down as true constitutional documents. 5 In this line of enquiry, we will understand how the Constitution of the Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE) established statutes as standards of living for its constituents. It is appropriate to remember that these ICE statutes at the end of the nineteenth century consisted of a brief, three page document, wherein they defined themselves as an organization dedicated to progress of mechanical science and delimited their areas of expertise to the construction of roads, bridges, aqueducts, canals, the routing of rivers, piers, as wells as ports, jetties, docks, lighthouses and other works for navigation. Other activities of interest to them included the construction and adaptation of machinery and drainage systems for cities and towns.
It is said that these activities were designed to exploit nature's power for the use and convenience of humans. The Constitution further defined the duty of engineers as stimulating commerce between states while strengthening internal and external markets. 6 Both young and old engineers throughout the world respected this mandate, 7 implementing venture projects and enlarging the horizons of technical transformation during the nineteenth century while amplifying human aesthetic development on a scale and at a velocity never before achieved. 8 As emphasized by Jaime Parada, "It is interesting to authenticate that British engineers brought along with them a way of being based on a spirit of enterprise and their ability to understand complex projects, combined with their desire for adventure in fame as well as in fortune." 9 Sergio González10 informs us that connecting territories was one of the most relevant characteristics during the nineteenth century, making it possible to re- investigate the structure of multiple realities via moveable frontiers and the versatility of adaptation among social actors in distinct circumstances, which overlap geographic and administrative areas. 11 5
Giorgio Agamben, "Exceptional poverty: Monastic rules and way of life", Adriana Hidalgo Editoral, Buenos Aires, 2013. 220 pp. 6 The Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE ), Constitution; London, ICE Archives, 1874. 7 Robert Angus Buchanan, "The Engineers: a History of the Engineering Profession in Britain, 1750-1914"; Kingsley Press, London, 1989, p. 150. 8 Jerome Bruner, "Cognitive Development and Education", Madrid, Morata Editorial, 1988, p. 46. 9 Jaime Parada, “The Engineering Profession and the Annals of the Institution of Engineers in Chile from 1840-1927”, Rafael Sagredo, Editor. Also, "Engineering and Society, 1889-1929", Santiago de Chile, Cent ro de Investigaciones Diego Barros Arana de la Dirección de Bibliotecas, Archivos y Museos, 2011, pp. ix-lxxvii, p. xxxiv. 10 Sergio González, “The Great Nort h of Chile: Historic definitions of limits, zones and boundaries and the importance of cities as geo-symbolic frontiers", Revista de Historia Social y de las Mentalidades, vol. 2, núm. 13, 2011. A vailable online at: www.revistas.usach.cl/ojs/index.php/historiasocial/article/ viewFile/98/89. 11 The denomination of Time-Space area that involves social actors contains a complex ont ology and
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One concept of this imperative allows us to realize that while newly forming South American nation states were embroiled in open controversy, technicians and commercial merchants flowed across their terrestrial and maritime borders, channelling the investments and financial yields of the entrepreneurs from the great cities of the Northern Hemisphere. 12 Thus, our reason here for amplifying the concept of transhumance, described as "...livestock routes that function as elements related to pastoral or stockbreeding societies, which by tradition were used to connect supplementary grazing lands by way of seasonal migration..." 13 A certain transmutation suggests that industrial processes infused ancestral cultural practices and vernacular knowledge, enlarging those themes of productive utilization on a global scale. 14 Social events and structures connected biographies with institutions, thus shaping a human landscape that leaves much to be investigated. With this in mind, the sociology of professions is recognized as offering some options for understanding the description of engineering development. 15 Nevertheless, these methods have favoured a segmented review by underrated administrative areas such as Nation-States. 16 Another method of inquiry originates from corporate or organizational reports, such as the analysis of Brown, Downey, Diogo, Cardoso, Gouzevitch and Grelon, whereby the backgrounds of European nationals, their internationalization and the circulation of their knowledge in the socalled Republic of Written Works opens up distinct paths for observation. 17 epistemology that must be stated explicitly; the concepts of space and geography may be replaced by surroundings, means, environment, ambiance and so on, as well as biotype, biogenesis, Gaia, troposphere, noosphere, among others. For further reflection: Ignacio Ayestarán, "Science and Ethics of Sustainability: from the binominal bio -noosphere to the "Letter to Earth", Laguna, Revista de Filosof ía, No. 26, 2010, pp. 63-78 12 Eduardo Cavieres and C. Aljovín (Compiled), "Chile-Peru, Peru-Chile: 1820-1920, Political, economic and cultural developments", 2005 and 2008, University of Valparaíso editorial, Valparaíso, Chile; Pablo Lacoste, “Argentina, Chile and her neighbors (1810-2000)”, 2005, Sothern Cone Collection, Caviar Bleu Intl. Mendoza, Argentina pp. 29-91. 13
V. de la Ossa and L. Botero, “Livestock routes and the importance of transhumance livestock", 2013, Colombia Review of Animal Science, Vol 5, No. 2, p 432. 14 JMichel de Certeau, "Inventing daily life", 2010, Universidad Iberoamericana, Mexico 15 Göran Ahlström, “Technical Education, Engineering, and Industrial Growth: Sweden in the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries”, in Robert Fox and Anna Guagnini (Editors) Education, technology and industrial performance in Europe, 1850-1939, Cambridge University Press; 1993, pp. 115 140. 16 Jan Hult and Bengt Nyström (Editors), "Technology and Industry. A Nordic Heritage", 1992, Canton MA, Science History Publications; Juan Couyoumdjian, “Two Scottish Engineers in Chile in the 19th Century and Beginnings of the 20th", 2003, Bulletin of Chilean Academy of History, No. 112, pp. 45 -66; Inmaculada Aguilar, "Discourse on Engineering in the 19th Century: Cont ributions to the history of public works", 2012, Fundación Juanelo Turriano y Consellería de Infraestructuras, Territorio y Medio Ambient e, Generalit at Valenciana. 17 John Brown, Gary Downey y Maria Paula Diogo, “Engineering Education and the History of Technology”, 2009, Tec hnology and Culture, vol. 50, No 4, pp. 737-752; Maria Paula Diogo, “From Railways to Politics: The Portuguese Pink Map Project and the British Empire”, 2012, 5th International Conference of the European Society for the History of Science: Scientific cosmopolitanism and local cultures: religions, ideologies, societies, Athens, Institute of Historical Research, National Hellenic Research Foundation.
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This is one approach for studying the subject, in other words, the subjectivity by which they developed their activities and maintained relations with the objects associated with their labo urs. This method of analysis requires a multi- focal representation capable of combining techniques and methods, while simultaneously depending on the flexibility and imagination necessary to detect various sources of information. It is a situation that, although a methodological generalization, is a sensitive argument when referring to the engineering profession, themes that have been addressed in depth even though there continue to be ample possibilities for development. 18 A variety of studies exist on engineering and engineers, which have left behind evidence implicating the resources used to access the structures as well as the subjectivity of the social actors, although they must be taken with a dose of limited information. 19 Part of the challenge of confronting a cultural study of engineers and engineering is the accessibility to sources of information about subjects' thoughts; whereas the majority of the registries paint a sketch of the objects and circumstances in their work they also, to a lesser degree, explicitly state the criteria they used for decision making. Among other difficulties is the fact that engineering functions habitually require the implementation of works in places that demand covering great distances within a variety of cultures. This directly affects the quality and access to available archives. This situation has been clearly documented by the movement of microhistory, especially as outlined in the decisive investigations of Carlo Ginzburg. 20 By contrast, the proposed methodology that opens possibilities for analysis by combining EventStructure with Spoken-Written has been considered appropriate and that when activated by repeated synchronization, enable a reading of social relationships dynamically expressing the economics of power. It establishes social actors in a hierarchical, mobile, regulated and articulated field within other social areas, all of which become a process of the social construction of meanings supplied by the subjects' own belief systems. This game of grouping together definitions and crystalizing hierarchies has been a body of work for examination, not a prior definition to denote or suggest the interpretation of their data; that is to say, an inductive reasoning route has been chosen. 21 This theoretical- methodological linkage has obligated the need to search for empirical evidence of engineers' subjectivity, electing engineering journals for review that, in their eagerness to 18
Ana Cardos o, Maria Paula Diogo, Irina Gouzevitch y André Grelon, "The Quest for a Professional Identity: Engineers between Training and Action," 2009, Lisboa, Ediciones Colibrí; Darina Martykanova, Ann Katherine Isaacs and Gudmundur álfdanars on, "Reconstructing Ottoman Engineers. Archaeology of a Profession (1789-1914)", 2010, Volume 16 of Doctoral dissertations, Plus-Pisa University Press 19 Robert Angus Buchanan, "The engineers: a history of the engineering profession in Britain, 175 0-1914" Kingsley Press, 1989, London 20 Carlo Ginzburg, " The cheese and the worms: The cosmos of a sixteent h century miller", 1992, translators John and Anne Tedeschi, JHU Press, Baltimore. 21 Koenraad Verboven, Myriam Carlier and Jan Dumolyn, “A Short Manual to the Art of P rosopography”, 2007, in: Prosopography, Approaches and Applications, Oxford University Press, pp. 35-70.
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propagate the applications of their tasks, divulge inventions or promote common information relevant to production and commercialization of industrial products. Thus, they reported with an eye toward public opinion while outlining the semantic territory of their universe of meanings. They set the conditions for a projected identity of their professional recognition while recovering that same identity by shaping expectations and social positions. In the topic under investigation, a triad is discovered that should be encountered as a unit because it considers the study of the subject, their activity and their objects. The eventual impossibility of sustaining an argument supported by a base of robust documentation drives the attention of the researcher toward resolution of the problem in other terms - that is, by widening the investigative search filters in such a way that even though social actors related to the case study may have left behind a sparse register of their activities and thoughts, the study of subjectivity becomes feasible to the extent they contrast with the information of other subjects linked professionally or by trade unions. By generating an extensive and intensive search to produce documentation, a minimal synthetic mapping of the mingling of ideas begins to take shape relating to relevant theoretical and analytical characteristics. Engineering journals provide information about the demise of prominent engineers in order to maintain their colleagues throughout the world up to date. Trade organizations also provided obituaries, although their reach was minor and their impact constrained to eventuality and to archives. This is the case study to which Jim Sharpe implies when he writes, taken from Carlo Ginzburg: "In conclusion, one may make good use of the information, including that from scarce, disperse or obscure documentation. 22 In combining this data, an appreciation of certain aspects of the global Anglo-Saxon Engineering trade union became established, in such a way as to appreciate their way of life and the professional facets of their daily duties."23 1.1
Prosopography and the genealogy of ideas
Prosopography is an investigative practice that meticulously deals with the challenges presented by the relative scarcity as wells as abundance of individual data. A renowned expert in prosopography is Lawrence Stone, 24 who summarizes by stating that collective biographies are an investigative technique advantageously used by historians since the first quarter of the twentieth century and are distinguished by two types or schools: the first was principally concerned with
22
Jim Sharpe, “ istory from Below”, in: Peter B urke (E ditor), New Perspective in Historical Writing, 1991, Cambridge UK, Polity Press, 254 pages. Another translations says: “One may take advantage of the information, even though the documentation may be trifling, disperse and difficult" (Ginz burg, ibid, p. 8). 23 Jaume Valentines, Tecnocràcia i catalanisme tècnic a Catalunya als anys 1930. Els enginyers industrials, de l’organització del taller a la racionalització de l’estat, Tesis doctoral, Director: Antoni Roca Rosell, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Departament d’ istòria Moderna i Contemporània, 2012, 344 pp. Similar strategies have been utilized in other studies, even though they are principally sustained with statistical information, for example: Parada (ibid) “The Engineering P rofession..." 24 Lawrenc e Stone, “Prosopography”, 1971, Daedalus, vol. 100, No. 1, pp. 46-79.
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the elites in proving their degree of affinity to certain social groups, while the second tendency manages massive analyses, often as quantitative prosopography. 25 The prosopographic technique has demonstrated its pertinence in cohorts of engineers, although it must be emphasized that these approximations have once again limited themselves to actions in national territories while having paid scarce attention to the behavio ur of professionals and their effect on the territories they colonized. 26 Recognizing that the technique of assimilated analysis is collective biography, important information is treated as genealogy; such as lineage enquiry, associations and reasonable referrals, mind sets and ideas capable of supporting the creation of a normative worldview for the cultural practices of engineering. A generational cohort wants to understand if elements of a preestablished arrangement exist that would have an impact on the options and technical choices implemented. This method of information treatment allows for usefulness of the subject's micro-biographies that, when isolated from their cohort and by the amount of information available, hardly illustrates a global vision of the socio-cultural career path of their community. Additionally, the sociological perspective of prosopography is enriched by the anthropological interpretation of each micro-biography. 27 After previously reviewing year 2012, the Minutes of the Proceedings of the September 2014 meeting of the Institute for Civil Engineers (ICE) was explored through their Virtual Library, which resulted in preliminary data that deserves to be reviewed in detail. 28 In the Engineering field, the Institution of Civil Engineers via their Minutes of the Proceedings published 136 obituaries between 1871 and 1917, whereby career trajectories were linked with the associate's travels in a South American country. The number of obituaries according to decade was: five in 1870, 12 in 1880, 33 in 1890, 26 in 1900 and 62 in 1910. Despite the progressive increase registered over 47 years of the ICE publications, it must be made clear that from 1917, no obituaries were found published in the Minutes of the Proceedings, synchronizing with the end of the First World War, yet up to now there has been no information to explain the change in their editorial decision. The records allow us to establish the age of the Engineer at death. In 127 cases, the average age is 57 ½, within a range of 27 to 89. Furthermore, of the 67 members of ICE who died before completing 60 years of age, twenty- five of them did not live to be 40 years old. In any case, 34 members of the group lived beyond 70 years.
25
elge Kragh, “Pros opography”, in: H. Kragh, An Introduction to the Historiography of Science, 1989, Cambridge University Press, pp. 244 Barcelona, Editorial Crítica, 1989, pp. 226-236. 26 Carolyn Dougherty, “George Stephenson and Nineteenth Century Engineering Net works”, in: Prosopography Approaches and Applications, A Handbook; KSB Keats-Rohan ed. Prosografica et Genealogica, (2007) Linacre Collage, Oxford UK, Vol 13, pp. 555-565. 27 Pedro Carasa, “Una mirada cultural a las élites políticas en los primeros pasos del estado constitucional”, Trocadero, núm. 19, 2007, pp. 31-54. 28 ICE Virtual Library, Essential Engineering Knowledge. http://www.icevirtuallibrary.com/
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In general terms this information should be amplified and analysed with greater thoroughness and should only be considered a preliminary approach. It seems appropriate to establish that the descriptions must be fleshed out combining their review with an interpretive understanding of the 60 articles and chapters of the Minutes of the Proceedings published between 1864 and 1992, taking into account the distinctive public works achieved in South America; such as mining, railways, ports, and saline water distillation - tasks that have not been tackled in this line of inquiry. In any case, the career paths of nine engineers with background information gathered in the ICE obituaries and who worked in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Chile, Paraguay, Peru, and Uruguay were reviewed: John Coghlan, 1824-1890; Conrad Henry Walter Grundtvig, 1861-1890; Percy Burrell, 1833-1890; Frank Henry Matthew, 1879-1915; Wilhelm Adolph Worsoe, 18571893; William Lloyd, 1822-1905; Edwin Clark, 1814-1894; James Gregson Chapman, 1830(?)-1902; and Rennie Charles Augustus Twyford, 1863-1901. Complementarily, biographical backgrounds coming from other sources were incorporated, all of which are hoped will strengthen the appreciation of the British Engineer as migratory transhumance in South America. 1.2
Engineering, resources and the logic of distribution
En the field of economic history, Rory Miller has observed the bi- national and multi- national nature of some commercial houses with offices in Valparaíso and El Callao (Chile). For example, he writes of Anthony Gibbs and Sons (Australia), Graham Rowe and Balfour Williamson (California), The Peruvian Corporation, Duncan Fox, Mathiason Beausire and Company, William and Jonathan Locketee (headquarters in Liverpool, England), including some who operated in the Peruvian commerce, like Henry Kendall & Sons of London. 29 This commercial presence, which was not exclusive to the United Kingdom, enables essential reading since the authorization of branch offices may be related to journeys that oversee and traverse different social classes required for a colonizing process where travellers, explorers, scientists 30 and engineers must also be considered. 31 It was precisely the technical components that speeded up productive processes and the chain of commercialization that modified physical and human geography. Fleshing out relationship networks is a theme of great relevance where nodes of connections deserve greater attention than has been given previously 32, since navigational and rail transport is scarcely an expression of an economic growth model when their ideological backgrounds may be reconsidered. 33 The importance of construction and extension of ports, bridges, and tunnels 29
Rory Miller, " The British Commercial Houses in Peru and Chile between the two World Wars: success and failure", Dec 2015, Studies in Economics, vol 42, No. 2, pp. 93-119 30 Sergio González Miranda, “Boom and bust of Chilean nitrate: the import ance of travellers, entrepreneurs and scientists, 1830-1919; Historical Times, No. 2, 2011, pp. 159 -178 31 W. S. Barclay, “The Geography of South Am erican Railways”, The Geographic al Journal, vol. 49, No. 4, 1917, pp. 241-277 32 Sergio González Miranda, “Speculators or Industrialists? Chilean politics and the problem of nitrat e propriety in Tarapacá during the 1880s", 2014, História (Santiago), Vol 47, No. 1, pp. 39-64 33 Rhoda Desbordes, “Repres enting ‘Informal Empire’ In The Nineteenth Century. Reuters in South America at the time of the War of the Pacific, 1879 -83”, 2008, istory, vol. 14, No. 2, pp. 121-139; John A.
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is based on the enlargement of transhumance areas, of cultivation and harvesting of raw materials, while simultaneously separating trading terms between global north and south. One dimension that has come to be explored in the process of colonization in the nineteenth century by the great cities of the Northern Hemisphere has been the relationship between knowledge administration and production. 34 This link between social structures could be of relevant information for the engineering world and deserves more detailed study, in that it brings an opportunity to delve into cultural processes that compel us to understand how and why vast numbers of young men, husbands and fathers - some with and others without families - detoured to South America territories to develop career paths.
Britton, “The Confusion Provoked by Instantaneous Discussion: The New International Communic ations Network and the Chilean Crisis of 1891–1892 in the United States”, 2007, Technology and Culture, No. 48, pp. 729-757 34 C. Llanos y J. A. González, “Riches and rout es: The south of Chile in the British Scientific Imperial Eyes (1830-1870)”, 2014, História Unisinos, vol. 18, No. 1, pp. 44 -55; González Miranda, "Boom and Bust of Chilean Nitrate" (ibid)
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Fig. 1: Map of railways that united the interior with the coast in South America. Source: W. S. Barclay, “The Geography of South American Railways”, The Geographical Journal, vol. 49, No. 4, 1917, p. 253.
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1.3
Cons ultancy in the nineteenth century: Migratory engineers in South America
One approach in the case of Chile supports the dominant image of an isolated landscape due to the Atacama Desert, the high altitudes of the Andes Mountains, and its isolated and inverted geographic position to the centres of the industrialized world, contrasting with information at the end of nineteenth century when Chile occupied a strategic place for the supply of raw materials and for its participation in commercial and financia l networks as a consequence of the links between Europe, the United States and Valparaíso. 35 In the area of technological interests it is possible to affirm that the general vision held about Chile has been that of a country that had never developed heavy industry. 36 Nevertheless, keeping in mind that today those models of industrialization are questioned, it appears advisable to review and weigh in on this general assessment by different means. The history of Chilean technology has some pending obligations with industrial processes and centres so much so that the narrative has had to insinuate that the processes of extraction and the intensive use of raw materials for exportation correspond to pre- industrial activities. This general opinion does not correspond to available information, which reveals that Chile was a part of the global route of industrial capitalism translated into commerce of artefacts as well as production appropriate for the local level. Thus, engineering works by Diego Adamson and Juan Clemenson in the Antofagasta area assembled locomotives and constructed processing plants for nitrate from the del Carmen Salt flats, all of which would necessarily be paired with the foundry of Edward Orchard. 37 In other areas of Chile as well, some heavy industrial centres flourished where possible, for example in locomotive construction, shipbuilding and automobile repair and assembly such as the machinery and galvanized metals industries of Ricardo Lever, Norman Ferguson and Guillermo Murphy in Viña del Mar. 38 During the course of several decades, a technical- institutional complex came into being on a global level, whose characteristics and reach broke all heretofore known scope and scale and mandated the creation of production mechanisms that redesigned standards established since the end of the eighteenth century. 39 Thus innovative projects were cultivated and harvested with an
35
Daniel R. Headrick, "The Tools of Empire: Technology and European Imperialism in the Ninet eent h Cent ury", 1981, Oxford university Press, p 187 36 William F. Sater, “Chile and the World Depression of the 1870s ”, 1979, Journal of Latin American Studies, vol. 11, No 1, pp. 67-99; Henry Kirsch, "Industrial Development in a Traditional Society: The Conflict of Entrepreneurship and Modernization in Chile", 1977, University Press of Florida, 210 pp. 37 Isaac Arce, "Historical Narratives of Antofagasta", 1997; Second Edition; Municipality of Antofagasta, 570 pp. [First Edition: 1930]. 38 Baldomero Estrada, “The British Collective in Valparaíso during the first half of the twentieth cent ury”, 2006; História, vol. 39, No 1, 2006, pp. 65-91; "Catalogue of Galvanization" probably edited in 1933 and illustrated by the arquitect Squiavini. Private collections of the mechanical engineer Luis Valenzuela Godoy. 39 Thomas ughes, “The E volution of Large Technological Systems”, in: Wiebe E. Bijker, Thomas P. Hughes and Trevor Pinch (E ditors), in The Social Construction of Technological Systems, 1987, Cambridge, MA, MIT, pp. 51-82.
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eagerness for progress, love of standardization and thoroughness for time control, among other cutting edge innovations. 40 The Chilean industrial census of 1895 41 allows an appreciation for the growth in stature of mining projects and subsequently for the President of the Republic, José Manuel Balmaceda, which evidently transcended his political party and him personally. 42 Industrialization was the visible face of the project that wanted to convert Chile into a modern country. Nevertheless, there was room for alignments and valued principles of various origins in this ideological framework and for that reason both Christian and secular postulants of humanism, social-democrat proponents and many other combinations - even Darwinism - permeated the industrial scope of activity by focusing on environmentalist, philanthropic or charitable actions. All of this institutionalized the concept of Welfare Services for the industrial worker. In a certain way, at the beginning of the twentieth century, welfare became the strongest internal link in the chain of industrial productivity. It is particularly convenient to stop and examine the problem of access to housing, which was one of the major proportional complexities in the middle of the nineteenth century, especially when linked to the growth phases of industrial development and its most well-known collateral effect: urbanization. 43 Therefore, it's not unusual that in the industrial environment, housing provision came to be understood as a work incentive for the hired man or woman. Moreover, from the perspective of welfare, when an industry did not directly provide housing to their workers and families, they did collaborate in the construction of homes, or facilitated conditions for stimulating selfconstruction of those homes. 44 Thus, a series of factors with ideological characteristics appeared whereby healthful principles joined with logistics of the dominant Darwinian socialism of the nineteenth century. 45 The relevance reached by Vicuña Mackena in the design of cities like Santiago and Viña del Mar became manifest in the express desire to oppose the barbaric in favour of the ideal of civilization, and was associated with influences he collected during his exile in the USA and Europe between 1852 and 1855. 40
Dean C. Tipps, “Modernization Theory and the Comparative Study of National Societies: A Critical Perspective”, 1973, in Comparative Studies in Society and History, vol. 15, pp. 199-226. 41 Society for the Promotion of Manufacturing, Bulletin of Industrial Statistics of the Republic of Chile 1894 1895, No. 1-20, published bet ween 1895 and 1897. 42 Rafael Sagredo Baeza, “Why did Chile need to be industrialized by the end of the 19th cent ury?" in : Román Espech, Manufacturing industries in Chile, a study of the promotion of national industry presented at the Ministry of the Interior [1883], Santiago, Biblioteca Fundamentos de la Construcción de Chile, 2012, pp. ix-xxv. 43 The Transformation of Poor Neighbourhoods in Santiago, part 1. April 28, 1872, Ferroc arril Ed. Reproduced in: Sergio Grez Toso, The Chilean Social Question: Precursors ideas and debates (18041902), Santiago, Ed. de la Dirección de Bibliot ecas, Archivos y Museos, 1995, p. 211. 44 Nelson Arellano Escudero, “Local history of the popular access to land: case study for the city of Viña del Mar”, 2005, INVI, vol. 54, No. 20, pp. 56-84. 45 César Leyton and Rafael uertas, “Urban reform and social health in Santiago de Chile. The liberal techno-utopia of Benjamín Vicuña Mackenna (1872-1875)”, 2012, Dy namis, vol. 32, No. 1, pp. 21-44.
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Fig. 2, International advertisement. The international network included: Buenos Aires, Argentina, Mexico, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and Valparaiso, Chile Source: Engineering 1913
On the contrary, a wide range of industries in Europe adapted viewpoints that precisely proposed to dissolve discrimination. For example, in France various industrial proprietors financed the construction of villages for workers with a certain model of urbanism: the garden city. 46 n atalonia, the renowne in ustrial use i G ell 1 4 -191 commissione Antonio Gau to esign the G ell olony", a workers city that would be aligned with the textile industry on his property and motivated by his move in 1890 from Barcelona to Santa Coloma de Cervelló. Among these case studies we discover a real pioneer in one Robert Owen (1771-1858), Welsh, socialist leader and industrialist, who financed construction projects in New Lanark and New Harmony. Here we find a hoped for synthesis to happen between the concept of the Ideal City and social engineering, in the establishment of reform that implied improving the workers' education to the point where his projects opened the first primary school in the United Kingdom in 1816, as well as limiting the sale of alcoholic beverages. 47
46
Gracia Dorel-Ferré, “Work arc hitecture and new societies in industrial villages and cities (1780-1930)”, in: J. C. Daumas et G. Chouquer (Dir.), Autour de Ledoux, Architecture, Village and Utopia, Paris, Presses Universitaires de Franche-Comt é, 2008, pp. 307-328. 47 Abundant literat ure exists about Robert Owen. For example, see: Estrella Trincado and Manuel Sant os Redondo, “Bentham and Owen on Ent repreneurship and Social Reform”, The European Journal of the History of Economic Thought, 2012, vol. 19, No. 4, pp. 1-26.
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Yet another thorough proof of correlation is seen in the case of one David Angus (1855-1926) who, upon arrival in Lota to manage the mineral work of Arauco and encountering a workers strike, took measures to assure that the person in charge of repairing the homes of miner's and their families was fired (he discovered that the homes were inadequate for the climate), prohibited women from working inside the mines and placed them outside in coal classification to detect wash density characteristics, and then satisfied their salary payments on a regular basis, which up until then occurred in a haphazard manner. 48 Additionally, his administrative style paid attention to the workers complaints and gave them incentives such as bonuses for work attendance and coal extraction on Mondays, thus solving the problem of absenteeism at the beginning of the week. Of course, Chile was part of a global productive chain primarily centralized in the great European cities and production centres in the United States, and thus became a participant in the circulation of nineteenth century ideas. As such, it is no surprise that housing developments were established for workers of the Humberstone nitrate mines or for copper workers at Sewell for the Braden Copper Company49 where in 1918, they developed a Welfare Service that helped with food, entertainment and first aide as well as supervising the dry law the Company imposed during working hours. 50 The historian María Angélica Illanes expanded upon this area of productive organization that helped bring the first incursions of professional Social Services into Chilean industry - and it seems in all Latin America - in 1927 during mining regulations for coal extraction. 51 Between 1929 and 1935, eleven large industries took the same leads and this organizational shift could be attributed to the initiatives of the nineteenth century. 52 This process intensified genetic engineering projects and the concept of racial improvement through education and health care. The concept of workers' welfare became converted into a robust guarantor capable of production in the face of political comings and goings and from there to the ideological infiltration of unions and other forms of popular organization. 53 The description that supports Couyoumdjian about David Angus 54 is accompanied by that of another Scottish engineer, John King (1833 - 1921) 55 , and suggests a parallel work trajectory that 48
Couyoumdjian (ibid 15) Dorel-Ferré (ibid 45) 50 Alejandro Fuenzalida Grandón, "Work and Life at the El Teniente Mine", 1919, Santiago. ImprentaLitografía Barcelona, 211 pp. 51 María Angélica Illanes, “That women in Lota-Coronel - Power and Domestication: The first industrial social services in Latin America ”, Mapocho press 2001, vol. 49, No. 1, pp. 141-148; María Angélica Illanes, "The Politics of Blood and Body: The historic construction of social workers in Chile, 1887-1940", 2007, Editorial LOM, 497 pp. 52 Magdalena Calderón and Nelson Arellano, “S ocial Work and Labour Welfare in Chile ”, in: Occupational Social Work : an international perspective, 2014, Guillermina Garza, Ed. Mexico, Autonomous University of Nuevo León, 2014, at press. 53 Illanes (ibid 50) 54 Craig Mair, "David A ngus, The life and adventures of a Victorian Railways Engineer", 1989, Stevenage, The Strong Oak Press, 230 pp. 55 George A. King, "John King: the Story of his Ancestry, Career and Descendants ", 1958, Amsterdam, Cape Town, A.A. Balakema Press, 1958. 49
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differentiates King as having developed almost his entire career exclusively in Chile. 56 On the other hand, the career of Angus began at Dundee with his first phase at Glasgow where he studied at University and worked with the brothers David and Thomas Stevenson, of whom more details are known. 57 These brothers were the sons of the ICE engineer Robert Stevenson, renowned for his knowledge in the construction of lighthouses. After having completed the necessary apprenticeship, Thomas e ntered the workforce that had been developed by his brothers David and Alan, the latter having a solid foundation on the construction of lighthouses, ports, bridges and river canals, and where he later had the opportunity to work under the direction of Telford and William MacKenzie. 58 Alan became the successor to his father Robert in the engineering office of "The Commissioners of the Northern Lighthouses" where his work was widely recognized and awarded medals from the Emperor of Russian and the Kings of Prussia and Holland. Thomas achieved merit with his outstanding monographs on the construction of ports and lighthouses. 59 The Stevenson family constituted an engineering dynasty and their relevance in the formation of David Angus must have been quite significant. Take for example the active participation of Thomas in the Church of Scotland where he wrote several pamphlets under the pseudonym "Layman" on religious topics later used in the education of students throughout Scotland. His public role was also evident in the Society of Edinburgh, where he was elected Councilman in 1848 and later in 1885, as president. After going through this formative process, David Angus was contracted to collaborate in the construction of railways in Vittoria, Brazil. Later, in 1884, he landed in Buenos Aires and became involved in the construction of railways uniting that city with Rosario. In the process of that construction he also contributed to the designs of bridges and a port at the river Paraná. By the middle of 1885, David Angus was in the UK to get married, later returning to Argentina to direct topography works in the province of Mendoza and directly thereafter began the construction of railways from Los Toros to El Salto in Uruguay, which he concluded in 1889. Afterward, he travelled to Paraguay where he worked on the railway lines from Asunción to Villa Rica until 1891, when a severe economic crisis shut down his prospects in South America, whereupon he accepted a call to direct works in what is now Namibia (southwest Africa) up until March of 1893. This was the year in which he accepted an offer to work on coalmines in Chile, contracted by the Arauco Company, Limited, with headquarters in London and owned by one John North, known in Chile as The Nitrate King. 60 That episode in Paraguay by David Angus had a precedent by 33 years that merits a detailed
56
In the obituaries of Minutes of the Proc eedings there were no references to either a John King or a David Angus. 57 “Obituary of Thomas Stevenson, 1818-1887”, Minutes of the Proceedings, vol. 91, 1888, pp. 424 -426. 58 “Obituary of Alan Stevenson, LLB, 1807-1866”, Minutes of the Proceedings, vol. 26, 1867, pp. 575 -577. 59 Thomas Stevenson, "The Design and Construction of Harbours. A Treatise on Maritime Engineering", Third edition, Edinburgh, Adam and Charles Black, 1886; Thomas Stevenson, "Lighthouse Construction and Illumination", London, E. and F. N. Spoon, 1881, 289 pp. 60 Nelson Arellano, “Solar Desalinization Plants in Las Salinas (1872): Literature and memory of a pioneering ex perience", Quaderns d’ istòria de l’Enginyeria, Barcelona, vol. 12, 2011, pp. 229-251.
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observation. 61 This concerns the story of the British Engineer George Thompson (1803-1876), "who was one of the dozens of technicians from that Island contracted by the government of don Carlos Antonio Lopez to begin working on the infrastructure of the country to help moder nize it. They later contributed to a fundamental service in the construction of trenches that formed part of the military defence structure during the War."62 Thompson had an obituary in the ICE where we are informed that his birth was the 26th of March of 1839, not in 1803 as was seen above in the version of José Garcia. Thompson, as part of his educational formation on the island of Malta between 1855 and 1857, was a pupil of W.L. Arrowsmith who was at that time superintendent of civil works for the government of Malta and connected with the supply of gas for the island. After a short stint in London, he returned to South America to collaborate with his brother's businesses but, in September of that same year, joined with a group working on the railways between Asunción and Villa Rica. He was working under the direction of engineers George Paddison, Burrell and Valpy. His memoirs of his time in Paraguay highlight his dominance of the local indigeno us language of Guaraní, as well as his fluency in five other non-specified languages. In 1865, Thompson offered his services to the military engineers of Paraguay in their war against the Triple Alliance of Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay. His obituary decorated this participation, to assure that "his achievements will remain always alive in the history of South America." 63 In his role as Lieutenant Colonel in the Paraguayan Army, it seems his surrender was even before the loss of Angostura under the mandate of Lucas Carrillo. Brezzo 64 added, "Thompson arrived in Paraguay in 1858, and served the government until the 30th of December of 1868, where he was taken prisoner by the allies in Angostura after the battle of Ibá Ybaté, which destroyed the Paraguayan Army." Upon his return to Paraguay in 1871, President Jovellanos put Thompson in charge of the railways system until his death in 1876. The first edition of the History of the War of Paraguay by Thompson appeared in print in Buenos Aires in 1869, translated to Spanish by D. Lewis and A. Estrada. 65 The obituary of George Thompson in ICE tells us that he had received the decoration of Knights of the Order of Merit and that in 1869, while in England, he published The War in Paraguay. Upon his return to Paraguay he married a local woman and had three children without mentioning their identities. In 1870, Thompson worked in Cordoba (Argentina) for the Presidential Department of Topography in the elaboration of a map of the province, quitting in 1871 to return to Paraguay and become the manager of the Asunción to Villa Rica Railway, until his death in March of 1876 after a long unidentified illness. It is certainly interesting to observe the 61
Josefina Pla, " The British in Paraguay from 1850-1870", Asunción, Arte Nuevo Ed., 1984, 316 pp. J. E. García, “The War of the Triple Alliance and its Delaying E ffect on the Paraguayan Psychology", Procesos Históricos, year 11, No. 21, 2012, p. 32. 63 Minutes of the P roceedings, vol. 45, 1876, pp. 261-262. Thomson was under the supervision of Paddison, whose career path was reviewed in: Arellano y Roca-Ros ell, (ibid) p. 180. 64 Liliana Brezzo, “The War of the Triple Alliance within the Limits of Orthodoxy: Myths and Taboos", Universum, vol. 19, No. 1, 2004, pp. 10-27. 65 For further elaboration on this topic see: L. Brezzo, “The istoriography of Paraguay: from isolation to overcoming the Meditarranian" Dialogues, vol. 7, No. 1, 2003, pp. 157-175; Cecilio Báez and Juan E. O’Leary, "Controversy on the istory of Paraguay", Asunción, Ed. Tiempo de Historia, 2008, 472 pp.; N. Areces, “Terror and Violenc e During the War of Paraguay: 'The massacre of 1869' and the families of Conc epción”, European Review of Latin Americana and Caribbean Studies; No. 81, 2006, pp. 43 -63. 62
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participation and involvement of engineers in the confrontations, conflicts and wars of South America, especially considering their formation as civil engineers as opposed to that of military engineers. 66 Similar situations were observed in the Nitrate wars between Chile, Peru and Bolivia. 67 In a wider sense, these engineers overstepped their limits not only in the political administrative area when they took sides in the bellicose conflicts of South America, but also by crossing through previously accepted boundaries between civil and military engineers, passing from the private into the public spheres, as in the case of William Lloyd 1822 - 1905). 68 Lloyd had an even greater tour of duty than was common for engineers at the time: France, England, Sweden, Chile, Peru, Argentina, Mexico, Guatemala, Brazil, and California and Arizona in the United States, comprise the list of countries in which he worked. As the Resident Engineer of the Great Northern Railway of France, he participated in building railway lines to the port of Ambleteuse. Returning to England in 1844, he remained for eight years under the tutelage of George Robert Stephenson and George Parker Bidder. After this experience, Lloyd contributed to the design of railways for the government of Sweden in 1853, and later came to Chile to consult for that government on State railway systems. One of his most highlighted supporting roles in this area was his description of the railway characteristics concerning the lines from Santiago to Valparaíso 69 , which after having been read, were followed by repeated discussion in the headquarters of ICE in London and, occasionally, with the participation of engineers J. Paddison, E. Fowler, Woods, G. H. Phipps, C. B. Vignoles, Giles, Colburn and G. P. Bidder. 70 Among the many interesting aspects of this discussion was the consideration of environmental factors, such as the coastal problem of the dunes expansion, commenting that the summer winds swept the sands in such a manner as to make it impossible to maintain the trenches cleared. 71 Other aspects analysed included those of climate and earthquakes. 72
66
See for example: José Omar Moncada Maya, “ Hydraulic Works of Military Engineers in New Spain”, Quipu, vol. 7, No. 3, 1990, pp. 293-311; José Ignacio López Soria, “Relations between Military and Civil Engineers in Peru in the 19th Century”, Quipu, vol. 15, No. 3, 2013, pp. 271-283; José Omar Moncada Maya, “A Critical Analysis of the Body of Military Engineers in new Spain" Quipu, vol. 3, núm. 1, 1986, pp. 55-66; J. Sánchez Miñana, “The Military Engineer Ambrosio Garcés de Marcilla (1816-1859) and His Cont ribution to the Int roduction of the Electric Telegraph in Spain", Quaderns d’història de l’enginyeria, vol. 6, 2004, pp. 161-223; María Isabel Vicente, “The Artillery Schools of the 16th and 17th Centuries ”, Quaderns d’història de l’enginy eria, vol. 5, 2002, pp. 1-9. 67 Arellano y Roca-Rosell (ibíd.) p. 181 68 “Obituary of William Lloyd, 1822-1905”, Minutes of the Proceedings, vol. 164, 1906, pp. 409-410. 69 William Lloyd, “Description of the Santiago and Valparaiso railway, Chile, South America: with Remarks upon Resistances from Curves on Railways, and upon C oal-burning Locomotives”, Minutes of the Proceedings, vol. 23, 1864, pp. 376-398. 70 J. Paddison, E. Fowler, G. H. Woods, C. B. Phipps, Giles Vignoles, G. Colburn, and P. Bidder, “Discussion: Description of the Santiago and V alparaiso Railway, Chile, South America: with Remarks upon Resistances from Curves on Railways, and upon Coal -burning Locomotives”, Minutes of the Proceedings, (Session 1863-1864) vol. 23, 1864, pp. 399-405. 71 J. Paddison, et al (ibid) p 399 72 J. Paddison, et al (ibid) p 402
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Design characteristics of the route were continually compared with the Copiapó Extension Railways indicating, for example, where they had calculated a yield of 70 pounds of coke per mile of track with a speed of 12 miles per hour. 73 One topic of interest was the relationship between the efficiency of local coal versus quality of English coal, the latter having a high import cost to Chile. Comparisons were also made with experiments of materials resistance for the New York and Erie Railway Company lines. 74 Railway security was included among the interesting themes they debated. Engineer Phipps intervened with his preoccupation concerning curve calculations and estimated speed (500 to 600 feet of radius for every 30 miles per hour) based on tests using a single pulled wagon, which he considered to be absolutely insufficient for a friction test. Woods responded that, in reality, the velocity would be no more than 15 or 16 miles per hour on curves. The discussion lead Vignoles to conclude that he knew of no other experience of rail construction in the entire world that may have achieved the level of economy that this project had accomplished. 75 In any event, thanks to the presentation of his article, Lloyd received the Telford award and medallion conferred upon him by the ICE for the year's most acclaimed work. 76 After completing this labour in Chile, he directed his participation towards Mexico in 1864, where he directed construction of a 300 mile section of track from Veracruz to Mexico City, and from there he went to Guatemala and Argentina. Afterward, he took charge of the design of a section of track for the government of Brazil, which covered almost 1,600 kilometres between Cubita and Mato Groso. Lloyd's career came to an end during a renewed visit to Chile where he began another work, in 1881, on the Valparaiso Drainage Company. Other facets of his duties included the construction of St. Paul's Anglican Church in 1858. 77 His final undertaking before retirement occurred in California and Arizona in the United States, reporting on mining. The persistence with which frontiers were crossed, as in Chile and Argentina, and the subsequent consideration of those 19th century engineers as transhumance has been further advanced by the writings of María Cristina Hevilla and Matías Molina, who have gathered data on migrant groups throughout the Los Andes Mountain ranges and who reported to the British engineer Ignacio Rickard in the 1860s. We may assume that positive influences and colonization occurred, as migration of local communities continued even while Rickard personally continued to change his whereabouts. 78 Rickard 79 wrote a report on his travels with the dedication to Brigadier General Bartholomew 73
Approximat ely 32 Kg of coal per 1.6 Km of track J. Paddison, et al (ibid) pp 404-405 75 J. Paddison, et al (ibid) pp. 401-402 76 Obituary of William Lloyd, 1822-1905”, Minutes of the Proceedings, 1906, p. 409 77 William Edmundson, "A History of the British Presence in Chile: From Bloody Mary to Charles Darwin and the Decline of British Influence", Palgrave, Macmillan, 2009. p. 210 78 María Cristina evilla y Matías Molina, “Migration and New Mobilities at the Chilean-A rgentinean Border in the Central Andes", Trans port and Territory Review, No. 3, 2010, pp. 40-58 79 It was known that Rickard was elected to be a member of the Institution of Civil Engineers by this “Session 1669-1670. March 1, 1870. Charles B. Vignoles, F.R.S., President, in the Chair. The following 74
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Mitre and Lieutenant Colonel Domingo Faustino Sarmiento. 80 He began his voyage in Valparaíso on the 23rd of April in 1862, a major port city that he described with nostalgia, writing that there he was able to cultivate his beloved British cultural recreational activities: fox hunting, shooting, sailing, cricket, and horseracing, all in the company of friends while emphasizing how he valued these bonds and advantages of a civilized life. 81 Once he descended from the train, Rickard's journeys lead him to cross the Andes Mountains from Santa Rosa de Los Andes to Uspallata. From this part of the trip he wrote a description of local production as well as about other towns and locales, such as La Calera, the Catemu mines, San Felipe and the Aconcagua river watershed in general. In Chapter 19 he writes his observations of the mining situation in Argentina. Nevertheless, in Argentina his attention turned from mining and more toward the railways, with strong questioning about the type of administration and rules of property ownership. 82 These topics did not appear to have had precedent in the discussions of the ICE, judging by the proceedings, as was in the case of "Buenos Aires Western Railway Tunnels under the City of Buenos Aires" by W.L.L. Brown. 83 This intense and close type of relationship is what gives sustenance to an appreciation that South America formed part of the area of influence in the Informal British Empire, where the crown may not have control but a high degree of influence, where her representatives were politicians as well as businessmen or speculators who, in the search for protection of her interests, determined the social and political independence of the Republic. 84 Certainly the concept of an Informal Empire, under the models proposed here, can be argued in
candidates were balloted for and duly elected: Horatio Brothers, Richard Spelman Culley, John Gwynne, Handcock, Samuel Eeefer, Charles Martin, B.A., Robert Price, Edward James C.B. and Beed, William Mills, James Clifford Wigram, as Members elected John George Crampton, Henry James Galton, B.A., Henry James Burford Hancock, George Hodson, Henry Joll, William George Laws, Richard Longlands, John Marshman, William Morris,William Powell, Major Francis Ignacio Rickard, Captain Frederick Smith Stanton and George R." 80 Francis Ignacio Rickard, "A Mining Journey Across the Great Andes: With Explorations in the Silver Mining Districts of the Provinces of San Juan and Mendoza, and a Journey Across the Pampas to Buenos Ayres", London, Smith, Elder & Co., 1863, 314 pp 81 Rickard, I. (ibid) p. 12 82 Raúl Scalabrini Ortiz, "A History of Argentinian Railways", Buenos Aires, Ed Lancelot, 2009, 398 pp. [First Edition 1940] 83 Minutes of the P roceedings, ICE, vol. 205, 1918, pp. 205-208. 84 Robert G. Albion, “Capital Movement and Transportation: British Shipping and Latin America, 1806 1914”, The Journal of Economic History, vol. 11, No. 4, 1981, pp. 361-374; Charles William Centner, “Great Britain and Chilean Mining 1830-1914”, The Economic History Review, vol. 12, 1/2, 1942, pp. 7682; John May o, “Critique of Thomas F. O’Brien’s The Antofagasta Company: A Case Study of Peripheral Capit alism”, The is panic American Historical Review, vol. 60, No. 4, 1980, pp. 676-679; Michael Monteón, “The British in the Atacama Desert: The Cultural Bases of Economic Imperialism”, The Journal of Economic History, vol. 35, No. 1, 1975, pp. 117-133; Michael Monteón, “John T. North, The Nitrate King, and Chile’s Lost Future”, Latin American Pers pectives, vol. 30, 2003, pp. 69-90; Thomas F. O’Brien, “The Antofagasta Company: A Case Study of Peripheral Capit alism”, The is panic American Historical Review, vol. 60, No. 1, 1980, pp. 1-31; Nicholas Twohill, “The British World and its Role in the Relationship between New Zealand and the Sout hern Cone Countries of Sout h America, 1820-1914”, istoria, vol. 43, No. 1, 2010, pp. 113-162.
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the light of historical records and perspectives expressed by Hernán Ramirez Necochea. 85 On May 14th of 1839, the Foreign Office communicated to its Chilean delegate that, "The Chief of omman of His Majesty’s Naval Forces in the Pacific (Admiral Charles B.T. Ross) has been instructed to retaliate against Chilean ships and to capture as many as may be encountered and to detain them until the most complete restitutions has been effected [...]."86 Although it is true that this occurred in the context of a war between Chile and the Peru-Bolivia Confederation in the middle of the nineteenth century, this logical operative method involving threats of use of force for protecting the interests of the British Crown could have been maintained up until the First World War. The influence of the United Kingdom through the presence and actions of engineering reinforces the idea of an Informal Empire in Chile, even though threats of use of force as much as coercion could have been present to a less subtle degree than that which resembles an Informal Empire. 87 Previous records reveal that military and civilian engineers took over important economic developments in the country and this coincided with the writings of Buchanan. 88 Nevertheless, this outline must be supplemented with an analysis of the behaviours and ethics of technical personnel, whose intervention and participation in a wide range of facts in the history of Chile collaborates our understanding of a cultural historical framework. Information gathered in journals such as Engineering, and the endorsement of engineer's actions as promoted through their obituaries, all coincide with the diffusion of a worldview oriented toward the conservation of the status quo. Tying together all these results, according to what may be deduced from the definitions of the ICE, the basic purposefulness binding engineers together is explicit in the dichotomy of natureculture and clearly states that it is their duty to have dominion over nature, assuming that man is the superior being on the tree of life, and therefore must develop the instruments with which to implement the Divine Plan, which is the submission of all creation under man's will. The energy of this ideological model comes from the idea of Progress, so beloved for modernizing projects and linked to the technological concept of economics. 89 At this point it appears appropriate to point out the unknown between British engineering ideas and the local South American version, with its own techniques. One may also add the question of what engineering performance and influence may have had on other countries in the continent. In the world of Literature of the Republic, this is the universe of meaning circulating within the engineering environment. Even so, a very reduced sampling of thought and movement of British engineers in South 85
Hernán Ramirez Necochea, “The British Government and the War bet ween the Peru-B olivian Confederation", Chilean Review of History and Geography; No. 129, 1961, pp. 122-139. 86 Hernán Ramirez (ibid) p. 132 87 Arellano y Roca-Rosell (ibid) 88 Buchanan, Robert Angus, "The Engineers: a history of the engineering profession in Britain, 17501914", London, Kingsley Press, 1989. 89 Giorgio Agamben, "The Kingdom and the Glory: For a theological genecology of economics and government", Valencia, Ed. Pre-Textos, 2008. For more on Nature vs. Culture, see Philippe Descola y Gísli Pálsson, "Nature and Society", Anthropological Perspectives, México, Siglo XXI, 2001, p 215.
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America has been noted here, partially explaining their distinct roles. The information available about daily engineering duties in South America is quite ample and requires more detailed work and continuous revisions. One aspect to be developed, for example, is the relationship of this engineering world with Brazil, the South American economy with the highest volume of investment and circulating engineering personnel and work teams. In the obituary findings, a little less than half correspond to those members of the ICE working in Brazil. In any event, a way of life overlapping with an organization of engineers has been presented here, and the evidence shows the need to establish lines of communication between technological, cultural, political and technological characteristics, allowing for a robust narrative for understanding social developments at the level of an entire continent and the role that technological evolution has played in that development. 90 3.
Conclusions
One aspect that figures implicitly in the process of transhumance concerns the recruitment of engineers to work on projects for which they were contracted. This process leaves out the mechanisms for recruitment and conditions for contracting personnel. This opens up a wide range of details for further research relating not only to the methods of mobilisation but also to the imagined social reasons why some engineers decided to stay in South American countries, while still others decided to return to their country of origin in the United Kingdom once they completed their obligations. Despite the preceding, a review of the social actors' trajectories in engineering during the time of the British Empire tells of a process that corresponds to the model expounded by Basalla (ibid) for understanding the Evolution of Technology, wherein he describes the process of selection between innovation and continual technology. One technical system is the highly complex mechanism comprised of social elements that understands technology as a cultural phenomenon represented by an object. This allows for an isolated analysis of the object, understanding it as a mechanism of an objective lineage - which of course is inseparable from the imagination - able to join with other objects and thus become described as an evolutionary lineage, in fractured or chaotic terms proposed by Basalla, where intermittent duration is possible and artefacts discarded. Among these elements, historical-cultural aspects must be considered integrating dissimilar perspectives of South America with London and, for example, or like those of farming with industry in Germany, all of which have had an impact on financial speculation, repression and wars. Consider the forces and synergies capable of generating impromptu colonization and local cultures to a life-style whereby conditions become apparently unliveable without the intensive use of energy and materials, such as those that happened in the deserts or the jungles. In this sense, British engineering is indicated as the ideological agent, an emblem of a way of life that was implanted, incorporated and assimilated into an environment that very well may be
90
George Basalla (ibid)
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conceived as the hybrid South American culture. 91
91
Néstor García Canclini, "Hybrid Cultures: Strategies for entering and leaving modernity" , México, Grijalbo Press, 2001, p. 115.
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