List of British Consular Officials in the Ottoman Empire ...

1 List of British Consular Officials in the Ottoman Empire and its former territories, from the sixteenth century to about 1860 July 2011 Introduction The following list has grown from a set of rough notes compiled by David Wilson while he was helping to catalogue the papers of Sir John Elijah Blunt at the University of Birmingham. The original aim was simply to identify people mentioned in those papers, but it soon became obvious that they were connected by a complicated network of family relationships extending over several generations. A more detailed account of those most closely connected with the Blunt family is being prepared separately, but it is hoped this draft list may be useful for people researching other families or particular consulates, since there does not appear to be a single reliable source of information with such a wide coverage.

2 In preparing this list, it was found that many of the sources are unreliable, incomplete or contradictory; this led to the adoption of a format which tries to show clearly where each piece of information came from. This does produce a rather cluttered effect, with a lot of brackets, but it makes it simple to remove redundant material or insert new as the project develops. Quite a lot of material from earlier drafts has already been removed as the picture became clearer. The aim has been to include all appointments from the foundation of the Levant Company in 1581 up to 1 Jan 1860, although some later appointments are also listed. The end point was chosen as being a time after the Crimean War when the Levant Consular Service had more or less settled down after the various upheavals that followed the transfer from the Levant Company to the Foreign Office.

3 Many of the references given here are to documents in The National Archives or other collections which have not been seen personally by the compiler and are only known from information in catalogues or references in other publications. From the few which he has seen personally, it is obvious that there is much more detail to be found, for example in the original papers of Levant Company, and close examination of these should remove many of the uncertainties in the present list. For the period before 1825, printed lists of consuls occasionally appeared in various almanacs and similar publications. As these obviously copied each other, the original source of each list is difficult to identify and by the time it appeared in any particular publication it might well be considerably out of date.

4 Another point to be remembered is that with the difficulties of travel and communication at that time, there might be considerable delays between a consul being appointed and taking up his post and between one dying and the appointment of a successor. Also, some appointments appear to have been re-appointments, such as those made after the accession of George III or after the handover from the Levant Company to the Foreign Office. While bearing this in mind, attempts were made to ascertain the date when each consul was appointed and when he finally left a post by transfer, retirement, or death. However in many cases it was only possible to find references to him being in post in a particular year, and this is where more work is needed.

5 In 1825, at the time of the winding-up of the Levant Company, a list of the Company s officers was printed (FO 881/2353). Although this includes some early vice-consuls and Consular agents, there were probably several more of these who had been acting more or less officially for the Company. Over the next thirty years, several more extensive lists were presented as Parliamentary Papers, and in 1852 the regular publication of the Foreign Office List began. The first few editions are somewhat unreliable but by the 1860s this gave fairly comprehensive information about who the consuls were and where they were posted. However these official lists rarely provided any genealogical information. Attempts have been made to remedy this lack by using a wide variety of sources, of varying reliability.

6 Where no reference is shown it is usually because a primary source (such as a church register) was not given, but in some cases the information was collected at an early stage of the project, and the source was not recorded in either case the information needs to be verified. Ambassadors are only mentioned briefly here because they have been well documented elsewhere. Because they too have been fairly well documented elsewhere, dragomans have usually only been mentioned here when they also carried out other functions. However some other non- Consular staff such as treasurers, chaplains and surgeons have been included because they were often people who are interesting in their own right. Much more detailed study of primary sources will be required before the list becomes really reliable.

7 But it is hoped that even in its present form it may be of some use to other researchers and that it will at least highlight the danger of relying on any single source of information, however authoritative this might appear to be. The list is being made public at this stage in the hope that other researchers will help to fill some of the gaps that remain, to correct any mistakes and suggest improvements, and particularly to add more personal details of the consuls and their families. British Consular Officials in the Ottoman Empire David Wilson : July 2011 - 2 - .References Documents at The National Archives (TNA): Public Record Office (PRO) are cited simply with their department code (FO, PC, SP, etc.), without the prefix TNA: PRO.

8 Many of the works listed below may be found online, but the URL has only been shown in a few cases, in order to keep the list compact. Abun-Nasr = Jamil M. Abun-Nasr, The Tunisian state in the eighteenth century , Revue de l Occident mussulman et de la Meditarran e, vol. 33, no. 33 (1982), pp. 33-66. Ambrose = Gwilym Ambrose, English traders at Aleppo (1658-1756) , Economic History Review, vol. 3, no. 2, (Oct, 1931), pp. 246-267. AN = Angliae Notitia [continued as MBN ] Anderson = Anderson, Great Britain and the Barbary States in the eighteenth century , Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research, vol. 29, (1956), pp. 87-107. AndersonECT = Sonia P. Anderson, An English consul in Turkey: Paul Rycaut at Smyrna, 1667-1678, Oxford, 1989.

9 AnnReg = The Annual Register. Argenti = Argenti (ed.), Diplomatic Archives of Chios, vol. 1, Cambridge, 1954. AusDB = Australian Dictionary of Biography. Austin = William Austin, The history of a Bedfordshire family, London, 1911. Baltimore = Frederick Calvert, 6th Baron Baltimore, A tour to the East, in the years 1763 and 1764, London, 1767. B&M = Khalid Ben-Srhir (transl. M. Williams & G. Waterson), Britain and Morocco during the embassy of John Drummond Hay, 1845- 1886, Abingdon, 2005. Bartholdy = Jakob Ludwig Salomo Bartholdy, Voyage en Gr ce, .. 1803 et 1804, pt. 2, Paris, 1807. Beawes = Wyndham Beawes, Lex mercatoria rediviva: or, the Merchant s Directory, 6th edn, Dublin, 1773. Bell = Gary M. Bell, A handlist of British diplomatic representatives 1509-1688, London, 1990.

10 Bent = James Theodore Bent (ed.), Early voyages and travels in the Levant, London, 1893. Berridge = Geoff Berridge, British diplomacy in Turkey, 1583 to the present, Leiden, 2009. Beschaouch = Azedine Beschaouch, Sur les finances municipales en Afrique romaine sous le Haut- Empire , Comptes-rendus des s ances de l'Acad mie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres , vol. 143, no. 3, (1999), pp. 1035-1052. Betham = William Betham, The baronetage of England, London, 1802. BIC = The British Imperial Calendar, 1844 and TNA abstracts 1809-1825. Bindoff = Bindoff et al., British diplomatic representatives, 1789-1852, [Camden Third Series, vol. 50], London, 1934. Bird = Isaac Bird, Bible work in Bible Lands, Philadelphia, 1876. BLG = Burke s Landed Gentry.