Carlos D. Gibson

Carlos Diego Gibson Möller (Arequipa, 10 February 1889 – 25 September 1954) was a Peruvian lawyer, professor and politician. He was Second Vice President of the Republic (1939-1945) and Rector of the National University of San Agustín (1939-1944).



Biography
His father was Enrique W. Gibson Bernaldo de Estremadoyro, son of James Thomas Gibson and María Pía Bernaldo de Estremadoyro y Vásquez. His mother was Dorotea Möller Sojo-Vallejo, daughter of Guillermo Möller Keetz and María Sojo-Vallejo. He was the brother of the poet Percy Gibson and uncle of the journalist Doris Gibson.

He studied at the Colegio Victor Bailly and, later, he entered the National University of San Agustín of Arequipa, from where he obtained a law degree in 1908. He obtained a doctorate in 1910, and a Ph.D. in 1936. He taught at his alma mater, as an interim professor of Ancient Literature, Art History, and Critical History of Peru (1907) and later became professor of Statistics, Finance, and Financial Legislation of Peru at the Universidad Mayor de San Marcos in Lima.

In 1913, he travelled to Europe. In England, he took courses at the Oxford University  and the  Cambridge University, from where he earned a degree of Masters in Arts. Then he went to France, where he studied at the Sorbonne University. In 1916, he returned to Peru.

He married in Arequipa with María Mercedes Lira de Romaña, with whom he had seven children.

In 1919, he was appointed first secretary, then an adviser, and finally a charge d'affaires at the embassy in the United States. He was appointed honorary attaché in Buenos Aires. Later, he was appointed as an honorary secretary in London. He was appointed as a minister plenipotentiary to Scandinavian countries and, later, to Bolivia.

In 1939, along with Manuel Prado and Ugarteche as President and Rafael Larco Herrera as First Vice President, he was elected Second Vice President of the Republic, a nominal position that he held until the end of that government, in 1945.

Likewise, he was the rector of the National University of San Agustín de Arequipa (1939-1944). He gained prominence as a lecturer at the university. In 1940, he was elected Dean of the Arequipa Bar Association.

He was also a member of the British Institute of Philosophy, and represented Peru in different organizations, among them the International Conference on Labor and Social Security, in Geneva; at the Philosophical Congress, in Prague, and at the Congress of International Documentation, Paris are notable ones.

In 1949, he put an end to his prolonged university career.