The flat lands of Lafonia stretch for miles, beautiful and wild with lakes and ponds for wildfowl. The land is undulating, rarely rising above 100ft. It is a huge plain comprising around half of the total land of East Falkland, forming the entire southern section below Brenton Loch and Choiseul Sound.

Peculiarly paddocks are referred to as ‘parks’ in the Lafonia area.

In 1842 Governor Moody, keen to attract interest to the colony, reported that there were forty thousand head of magnificent fat cattle, better than those of the Plate, ready to be exploited. This drew the attention of Samual Fisher Lafone, and English merchant of Montevideo. In March 1846 a contract was signed in London giving Lafone sole rights the wild cattle, in the southern peninsula of East Falkland and adjacent islands, to kill or tame them. This area of land became known as Lafonia. Lafone was an absentee landlord who never visited the islands but operated though agents. He did not bring English settlers to the colony as promised but instead brought in gauchos from Uruguay to deal with the cattle from a base at Hope Place on the shores of Brenton Loch. Lafone’ s venture ran into debt, despite being granted concessions by the government. It was decided the easiest solution would be to form a stock company and in January 1851 a preliminary meeting of the Falkland Islands Company was held and on 10th January 1852 it had a Royal Charter to Trade with Lafone himself a major shareholder. Expectations were that wild cattle would be tamed, sheep farming developed, and a general store and postal communications within the islands would be established. John Dale, brother-in-law of Samuel Lafone was appointed the Company’s first Colonial Manager. Experienced gauchos, horses sheep and stores arrived in the islands and two vessels were purchased. After two years it was evident that the venture was in trouble, the cattle killing operation was not successful and the mail contract was causing heavy losses. [1] The turning point came in 1867 when Frederick Cobb was appointed Colonial Manager. He was only 22 years old but under his leadership the Company began to prosper.

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