A unique and extraordinary record of the life of an English explorer and adventurer in Patagonia between 1907 and 1920 who worked out of Puerto Prat between 1907 and 1914 and then Ultima Esperanza until 1920. Willis’s Patagonian life is told through his very large album (31x26cmx8cm) that he filled with photographs, panoramas, letters, a dance card from the ‘first dance ever’ in Ultima Esperanza and an image of ‘First Association Football Game played in the Last Hope’ (1912) as well as photographs of the previously unexplored Cordillera Mountains with a further claim to primacy: ‘First photograph of this unexplored region of Patagonia known to be taken; hundreds of sq miles of Cordillera Mts, 1910’.
At his side for many of these adventures was the German explorer of Patagonia Hermann Eberhard (1852-1908) who reappears repeatedly in the album along with the influential German-Chilean pioneer, Ricardo Kruger - Eberhard’s visiting card is laid in with an inscription begging him ‘to accept the animal tied to this note’ - string but not animal still attached! Willis is an archivist’s dream as a man who seems to have thrown nothing away - alongside printed pamphlets, hand-drawn maps, notes and ever present annotation, he has included his ‘Lamb Marking’ notebook from 1919. There are two letters from the ‘British Museum (Natural History)’ thanking him for his presentations of specimens and numerous ephemera from the Sociedad Explotadora de Tierra del Fuego, two hand drawn pencil maps of Willis’s sheep camps, pamphlets, wedding invitations, cartes de visite, pamphlets and clippings which record his activities in some of the wildest least explored landscapes on earth. The Company for Exploiting Terra del Fuego that he worked for majored in sheep farming and mineral extraction as well as overseeing the colonisation of the southern tip of south America. Willis was born in Leicester in 1879, dying in Kent in 1959 and worked in Canada after his stint in Tierra del Fuego.
PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: The album measures 31×26x6cm, and has 127 pages of entries: The album is in worn condition, with an early amateur repair to the spine and rubbing to all edges. The sewing is shaken; one page detached. Some of the photographs have faded, but most are in good condition, and nearly all have Willis's informative explanatory annotations. The booklets that have been pasted in are heavily creased. However, this unique and fascinating record of an Edwardian adventurer's life contains around 100 photos, generally in 16x11cm format, combined with some fine panoramas (28x8.5cm) of Ultima Esperanza. Laid in is Willis’s ‘Lamb Marking’ notebook from November 1919 which contains 24 pages of notes enumerating sheep holdings in different camps.
NARRATIVE: Willis’s album follows a chronological structure from the moment that he arrived in Patagonia where he worked for the Sociedad Explotadora de Tierra del Fuego for the next decade and a half.
The album charts Willis’s friendship with Hermann Eberhard who is photographed in his boat, the ‘Resi’ which he used to explore the Esperanza Sound, along with ‘Yaggonae Indians’ and in a dinghy and at ‘Estancia, Eberhard’s Villa Luisa’ alongside his wife, later widow, and daughters. In this section of the album Willis has mounted two pamphlets relating to sheep farming (Valparaiso, 1905 & Punta Arenas, 1919). There are superb panorama photographs of the Ultima Esperanza fjord and Willis also photographed the Cueva del Milodon where Eberhard had discovered the extinct sloth a decade earlier together with images of ‘First traction engine in Patagonia’, the German-Chilean pioneer Ricardo Kruger (1869-1940) at Eberhard’s home. A note from the Sociedad sent to Willis confirms that he was ‘in charge of the port and transport arrangements’ between 1907-1914. Willis has tipped in his dance card for what he annotates as ‘First dance ever in (The Least Hope Inlet).’ A series of photographs record the activities of the Nitrate mining in the Atacama desert together with the main players in this profitable industry. Willis photographs the ’First Assoc.t Football Game played in the Last Hope’ - Ultima Esperanza. There are two letters from the ‘British Museum (Natural History)’ thanking him for his presentations of specimens and numerous ephemera from the Sociedad Explotadora de Tierra del Fuego, two hand drawn pencil maps of Willis’s sheep camps, pamphlets, wedding invitations, cartes de visite, pamphlets and clippings which record his activities in some of the wildest least explored landscapes on earth.
