Claudio Vicuña Subercaseaux (1875 – May 21, 1956) was a Chilean farmer and politician, member of the

Liberal Democratic Party Several political parties from around the world have been called the Liberal Democratic Party, Democratic Liberal Party or Liberal Democrats. These parties have usually followed liberalism as ideology, although they can vary widely from very progr ...

. He served as a deputy and a state minister during the presidencies of presidents

Ramón Barros Luco Ramón Barros Luco (; June 9, 1835 – September 20, 1919) was President of Chile between 1910 and 1915. Barros Luco was born in 1835 in Santiago, Barros Luco was son of Ramón Luis Barros Fernández and Dolores Luco Fernández de Leiva. He gra ...

and

Arturo Alessandri Arturo Fortunato Alessandri Palma (; December 20, 1868 – August 24, 1950) was a Chilean political figure and reformer who served thrice as president of Chile, first from 1920 to 1924, then from March to October 1925, and finally from 1932 to ...

Family and education

He was born in

Santiago Santiago (, ; ), also known as Santiago de Chile (), is the capital and largest city of Chile and one of the largest cities in the Americas. It is located in the country's central valley and is the center of the Santiago Metropolitan Regi ...

, Chile, in 1875, one of the seven children of Lucía Subercaseaux Vicuña and

Claudio Vicuña Guerrero Claudio Vicuña Guerrero (Santiago, December 31, 1833 - Santiago, February 28, 1907) was a politician and diplomat from Chile, who served as Minister of the Interior between 1890 and 1891 during the government of José Manuel Balmaceda, in the m ...

, who was a deputy and a state minister during the presidency of President

José Manuel Balmaceda José Manuel Emiliano Balmaceda Fernández (; July 19, 1840 – September 19, 1891) served as the 10th President of Chile from September 18, 1886, to August 29, 1891. Balmaceda was part of the Castilian-Basque aristocracy in Chile. While h ...

. He studied primary and secondary education at the Colegio de los Sagrados Corazones de Santiago. He married Julia Ossa Lynch, with whom he had six children.

Political career

In the political arena, he was a member of the Liberal Democratic Party, a party that, when divided into Alliance and Unionists, was among the former and served as president of that group in 1924 and 1925. Additionally, he was a member of the executive board of the same. In the 1912 parliamentary elections, he ran as a candidate for deputy for Santiago, being elected for the legislative period 1912–1915. In his tenure, he was an effective collaborator in the Commission of Foreign Relations and Colonization, in the study of projects that he had to sponsor or let pass laws, for example, navigation with

Austria Austria, formally the Republic of Austria, is a landlocked country in Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine Federal states of Austria, states, of which the capital Vienna is the List of largest cities in Aust ...

; the embassy of the United States; reform of the consular law and others that were of utmost importance. Parallel to this, during the government of President

, on August 8, 1912, he was appointed as the titular

Minister of National Defense A ministry of defence or defense (see spelling differences), also known as a department of defence or defense, is the part of a government responsible for matters of defence and military forces, found in states where the government is divided ...

, a position he held until January 15, 1913. During his tenure in office, aviation was created, the Aviation School was founded, and the decree of the fortifications of the country was signed. Likewise, at that time, he commissioned Armstrong House of England and Bethlehem of the United States, the largest caliber

cannon A cannon is a large-caliber gun classified as a type of artillery, which usually launches a projectile using explosive chemical propellant. Gunpowder ("black powder") was the primary propellant before the invention of smokeless powder during th ...

s that were located in the fortifications of Arica, Valparaíso, Iquique, and Talcahuano. Later, in the 1915 Chilean parliamentary election, 1915 parliamentary elections, he was re-elected as a deputy, but for La Victoria and Melipilla, for the period 1915–1918. On that occasion, he joined the Permanent Commission of War and Navy. On the other hand, he was one of the organizers of Chile's attendance at the San Francisco, California Exhibition in 1915, which failed due to the exceptional circumstances of public finance, which were caused by the World War I and the paralysis of the nation's sources of income: the import of Potassium nitrate, saltpeter. Later, in June 1924, he was appointed by President

as a state counselor. Subsequently, on January 29, 1925, he was appointed by the president of the List of government juntas of Chile, Government Junta, Emilio Bello Codesido, as Ministry of Agriculture (Chile), Minister of Agriculture, Industry, and Colonization, a position he held with the return to the presidency of

, until October 2 of the same year. Simultaneously, between July 1 and 27, he acted as Ministry of Public Works (Chile), Minister of Public Works, Commerce, and Communications, replacing Francisco Mardones Otaíza on an interim basis. Among other activities, he was a member of the Sociedad Nacional de Agricultura, National Agricultural Society (SNA) and the Club de la Unión (Chile), Club de La Unión. He died in Santiago on May 21, 1956, at the age of 81.

References

External links

* Claudio Vicuña Subercaseaux on the ''Political History'' portal of the Library of the National Congress of Chile. {{DEFAULTSORT:Vicuña Subercaseaux, Claudio Vicuña family Subercaseaux family Members of the Chamber of Deputies of Chile 1875 births 1956 deaths Ministers of agriculture of Chile Ministers of public works of Chile Ministers of defense of Chile