Peruvians of British descent
British Peruvians are Peruvians of British descent. The phrase may refer to someone born in Peru of British descent. Among European Peruvians, the British were the fifth largest group of immigrants to settle in the country after the Spanish, Germans, Italians, the Swiss or/and the French.
History
Between 1860 and 1950 it is estimated that around 900 British settled in Peru.[1][2] The regions from which most of the British immigrants originated were Southampton and London, as well as Birmingham and Liverpool.
In 1872, the European Immigration Society (Spanish: Sociedad de Inmigración Europea) was founded in Peru. Its objective was promoting Old World immigration by covering the costs of their journeys and financially supporting them during their first settler years in Peru.
They mostly interacted with fellow British immigrants, and were usually relatively skilled at a trade. Many of them intermarried and at the beginning they were united, but as time passed many of them broke the circle. The British corporations owned many Chile saltpeter mines in the Tacna region of Peru during World War I when the territory was ruled by Chile.[citation needed]
Many British Peruvians left the nation in 1960s and 1970s to flee from excessive poverty. Others fled in response to the left-wing dictatorship of Gen. Juan Velasco Alvarado and most of these moved to United States, United Kingdom and Spain, while most of the rest to Canada, Australia and New Zealand. The second wave of British Peruvians left during the first Alan García regime that led Peru to extreme poverty, hyperinflation and terrorism.
Cultural legacy
Inca Kola was invented by an English immigrant. In 1911, in Rímac, one of Lima's oldest and most traditional neighborhoods, an immigrant English family began a small bottling company under their family name, Lindley. In 1928, the company was formally chartered in Peru as Corporación José R. Lindley S.A., whereupon Joseph R. Lindley became its first General Manager.[3][4][5]
