George Chaworth Musters

George Chaworth Musters (1841–1879) was a British Royal Navy commander and traveller, known as the "King of Patagonia".

He was born in Naples while his parents were travelling, 13 February 1841, the son of John George Musters of Wiverton Hall, Nottinghamshire, formerly of the 10th Royal Hussars, and his wife Emily, daughter of Philip Hamond of Westacre, Norfolk. His paternal grandparents were John Musters of Colwick Hall, Nottinghamshire, "the king of gentlemen huntsmen", who had married in 1805 Mary Anne Chaworth, heiress of Chaworth of Annesley Hall, Nottinghamshire, the "Mary" of Lord Byron's poem, The Dream. Musters was one of three children.

His father dying in 1842, and his mother in 1845, Musters was brought up mainly by his mother's brothers, one of whom, Robert Hamond, had sailed with Admiral Robert Fitzroy in HMS Beagle. He went to school at Saxby's in the Isle of Wight, and Green's at Sandgate, Kent, and then to Burney's academy at Gosport, to prepare for a naval career.

Musters was entered on board HMS Algiers, 74 guns, in 1854, and served in her in the Black Sea during the Crimean War, receiving the English and Turkish Crimean medals by the time he was 15. In October 1856 he was transferred to HMS Gorgon, and served in 1857–8 in HMS Chesapeake, and in 1859–61 in HMS Marlborough. In 1861 he passed in the first class in his examination; was posted to the royal yacht HMY Victoria and Albert; promoted to lieutenant 4 September 1861, and appointed to the sloop HMS Stromboli, Captain Philips, serving in her on the coast of South America from December 1861 until she was paid off in June 1866. When at Rio de Janeiro in 1862 he and a midshipman of the Stromboli, as a prank, climbed Sugarloaf Mountain, and planted the British ensign on the summit.

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