Two Welshmen named Captain Love Jones-Parry and Mr Lewis Jones held discussions with the Argentinians. They went to Patagonia to see whether the place was suitable.

They both travelled to Argentina in 1862. Having come to an agreement with Guillermo Rawson, a minister of the Argentinian Government, they sailed to Patagonia on a small ship named the Candelaria. The ship was driven by a ferocious storm into a bay. This bay was named Porth Madryn at the end of 1865, after Madryn in Pen Llŷn, which was Mr Jones-Parry’s home in Wales. This place is still known today as Puerto Madryn in Spanish.

Both men decided that the area was suitable for a new colony. They managed to persuade the Welsh emigrants to sail 8,000 miles across the Atlantic Ocean to begin a new life in the Colony.

Many places in Patagonia have been named after people, e.g. Trelew (Lewis Jones), Rawson (Guillermo Rawson) and Porth Madryn (after Love Jones-Parry’s home in Wales).