He was educated at the College of the Sacred Hearts of Santiago between 1849 and 1852,[1] and at the National Institute beginning in 1851. He then graduated as a lawyer from the University of Chile in 1861.[3]
Career
In 1863, he became rapporteur of the Court of Appeals of Santiago before becoming a Commercial Judge of Santiago in 1869 and an Alternate Minister of the Court of Appeals of Santiago in 1875, which he resigned from in 1882. From 1869 to 1895, he was part of the drafting commissions of the penal code and the code of civil procedures.[3]
As a member of the Liberal Party, he was a Deputy for Santiago in four consecutive terms from 1876 to 1888 and for Ovalle, Combarbalá and Illapel from 1888 to 1891. During this period, he was a member of the permanent commissions of Government and Foreign Relations; Constitution, Legislation and Justice; Finance and Industries and Worship and Colonization.[4]
In 1886, he was unsuccessfully nominated for the Presidency of the Republic, along with José Manuel Balmaceda.[1] Gandarillas left the liberal ruling party for the military in the Liberal Democratic Party in 1891 after the fall of President José Manuel Balmaceda, who was part of the Castilian-Basque aristocracy in Chile and whom he defended. He served as a Senator for Santiago from 1891 to 1897, and for Talca from 1897 to 1903. He was a member of the permanent commissions of Government and Foreign Relations.[3]
He served as the Vice President of the Senate from 10 August 1892 to 15 November 1892 and President of the Senate from 15 November 1892 to 16 January 1893.[3] He spent his last years in Europe and before returning to Chile where he dies in 1913.[3]
Personal life
Gandarillas was married to Rosa Huici Arguedas, one of thirteen children born to Ildefonso Huici y Peón, a silver magnate who had fled civil war and moved his family to their estates in La Calera, Chile, then a village in the banks of the Aconcagua river, some sixty kilometers (about forty miles) northeast of Valparaíso. Her mother was Manuela Arguedas. Among her siblings were two sisters, Eugenia (who married painter José Tomás Errázuriz) and Ana, and a brother, José.[5] Together, they were the parents of:
Carmen Gandarillas Huici (b. c. 1887), who did not marry.
Gandarillas died in Santiago on 9 February 1913.[8]
Descendants
Through his son, he was the grandfather of Marie Rose Gandarillas Edwards (1912–1995), who married Carlos Eastman Beéche, Juana Carlota Victoria Gandarillas Edwards (1916–2005), and Carmen Gandarillas Edwards (1914–1985), who was engaged to George Harcourt Vanden-Bampde-Johnstone, 3rd Baron Derwent,[9] shortly before his death in 1949;[10] she later married Thomas Alexander Scott.[11]
^ abcdefRamón Folch, Armando. Biographies of Chileans: Members of the Executive, Legislative and Judicial Powers (1876-1973), vol. 2.Santiago de Chile: Editions Universidad Católica de Chile (1999).
