San Miguel Historical Cemetery
MANUEL AGUSTÍN HEREDIA
The region of Cameros, located in La Rioja, was heading towards transhumant farming and textile production as their only economic activity. At the beginning of the 19th century, the region found itself in decline leading to a flow of migration towards the south of Spain. One of the migrants was Manuel Agustín Heredia Martínez who, at just 15 years old, lost his mother. In 1801, he settled in Vélez-Málaga and worked as a shop assistant in a relative’s business. In just a year, his business-like intuition drove him to turn around the bad numbers that the business had suffered.
He then moved by himself to Málaga in 1808, where he would establish himself in nuts, seeds and wine exportation, along with graphite from a mine in Benahavís, which would be the onset of his wealth. He knew his way around the circumstances of war and blockades caused by politics.
Making the most of the advantages of the 1825 Mines Law, Manuel Agustín Heredia bought, alongside some of his business partners, an iron ore mine and built his first factory, La Concepción, in Marbella on the banks of the Río Verde. Under Francisco Antonio Elorza’s technical guidance and now being the sole owner of the factory, he made it profitable. In 1833, he opened his second steel plant in Málaga, La Constancia, that refined pig iron produced in Marbella. Being so close to the port allowed him to have easy means to coking coal being imported from Northern Spain or England. In 1840, he became the first ironmonger in the country.
He diversified his business and industrial activity to lessen the risks of potential losses: he purchased and modernised a silver foundry in Adra, Almería. He owned a fleet of 18 ships to do business with Europe and America. He was a main shareholder in a Maritime Insurance Company and in a Fire Insurance Company, too. He established a line of steamboats between Cádiz and Marseille. He invested in breeding racehorses and built a chemical factory in land belonging to La Constancia that produced sulphuric acid, lye for soaps and stearin for candles; products that were very sought after at the time.
His industrial activity was so important that his outstanding social endeavours are often forgotten: as prior of the Chamber of Commerce, he worked towards improvements on the Camino de Antequera. In the port, he built a garden to help new industrial plants to acclimatise and supported the completion of the Aduana Building. He also founded the Círculo Malagueño and was named senator by royal appointment months before his death in 1846, being, at the time, one of the richest people in the country. A well-known industrial figure once described his personality as “a strange array of talents”. The vast majority of the nearly 2500 of his workers attended his funeral.
The neoclassic-styled mausoleum follows the Tetrastyle and Pseudo-Peripteral Doric Temple typology whose columns are made of cast iron. It was finished in 1852, once his wife, Isabel Livermoore, had died. The interior of the sculptural ensemble was done by the Florentine sculptor, Lorenzo Bartolini, and represents allegories of business, industry, fortune, charity and arts. The mausoleum stands out not only for its monumental character, but also for having direct access to the chapel that the Heredia family had restored and, every 6th December, would celebrate mass in honour of the Heredia family’s souls.
Texts: Francisco J. Rodriguez Marin · English Translation: Francisco Pineda Castillo and Sonny Arthur Tuke · English Narration: Sonny Arthur Tuke · Production: Photo Video Digital