Iranian Armenian
Iranian-Armenians ( hy, իրանահայեր ''iranahayer''), also known as Persian-Armenians ( hy, պարսկահայեր ''parskahayer''), are Iranians of Armenian ethnicity who may speak Armenian as their first language. Estimates of thei ...
financier, arms dealer and journalist.Edward Hilliard, Ed. Balliol College Register 1832-1914 page 220
In early 1916, he was appointed by George V of Armenia as one of the five members of the Armenian National Delegation to lead negotiations during and after the war, and the effective representative in London (the other four members were all based in Paris).
He was Chairman of the Royal Thames Yacht Club, and a founder in 1894 of the British Empire League. He was awarded an
OBE
The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations,
and public service outside the civil service. It was established o ...
Bushehr
Bushehr, Booshehr or Bushire ( fa, بوشهر ; also romanised as ''Būshehr'', ''Bouchehr'', ''Buschir'' and ''Busehr''), also known as Bandar Bushehr ( fa, ; also romanised as ''Bandar Būshehr'' and ''Bandar-e Būshehr''), previously Antioc ...
in
Qajar Persia
Qajar Iran (), also referred to as Qajar Persia, the Qajar Empire, '. Sublime State of Persia, officially the Sublime State of Iran ( fa, دولت علیّه ایران ') and also known then as the Guarded Domains of Iran ( fa, ممالک م ...
, whose family had lived in Persia "since before Elizabethan days", in shipping and commerce, having acted as treasurers to British Missions to the Shah of Persia.Malcolm, 1944, p.1-3 They had numerous contacts with significant financial families in the region such as that of
David Sassoon David Sassoon may refer to:
*David Sassoon (designer) (born 1932), British fashion designer
*David Sassoon (treasurer) (1792–1864), Iraqi-Jewish treasurer
*David Solomon Sassoon (1880–1942), Iraqi bibliophile
See also
*Sassoon family
*Albert A ...
.
He came to England at the age of 13 years old in 1881, for his education, under the guardianship of
Albert Sassoon
Sir Albert Abdullah David Sassoon, 1st Baronet, (25 July 181824 October 1896) was a Baghdad-born businessman and philanthropist.
Biography
Life and career
Sassoon was born on 25 July 1818 in Baghdad, Ottoman Empire, into the Sassoon family o ...
. As a boy he was friends with
Albert Goldsmid
Colonel Albert Edward Williamson Goldsmid (6 October 1846 – 27 March 1904) was a British officer. He was the founder of the Jewish Lads' Brigade (in 1895) and the Maccabaeans.
Biography
Albert Goldsmid was born in Poona, British India, the s ...
Margate
Margate is a seaside resort, seaside town on the north coast of Kent in south-east England. The town is estimated to be 1.5 miles long, north-east of Canterbury and includes Cliftonville, Garlinge, Palm Bay, UK, Palm Bay and Westbrook, Kent, ...
,
Kent
Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...
, before attending
Balliol College, Oxford
Balliol College () is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. One of Oxford's oldest colleges, it was founded around 1263 by John I de Balliol, a landowner from Barnard Castle in County Durham, who provided the f ...
between 1886-9.
Journalism
After leaving university, he published a political-financial newspaper in London. He later became one of the founders and editors of the ''
Hayastan Daily ''Hayastan'' ( hy, Հայաստան) was an Armenian public and political daily newspaper published from April 1917 to February 1918 in Tbilisi (Tiflis) by General Andranik.
History
The editors were Vahan Totovents and Levon Tutunjian. Hovhannes T ...
His arms dealing career began with making the first offer to provide 1,000 sharpshooters for service in Southern Africa, and he fitted out Major Albert Gybbon Spilsbury's ''Tourmaline'' yacht for its controversial 1897 expedition to
Mogador
Essaouira ( ; ar, الصويرة, aṣ-Ṣawīra; shi, ⵜⴰⵚⵚⵓⵔⵜ, Taṣṣort, formerly ''Amegdul''), known until the 1960s as Mogador, is a port city in the western Morocco, Moroccan region of Marrakesh-Safi, Marakesh-Safi, on the ...
, Morocco.For further details of the expedition, see Spilsbury's ''Tourmaline Expedition'' (1906), summarized at http://gibraltar-intro.blogspot.co.uk/2016/11/1898-tourmaline-expedition-major.html
Financing activities
As a contractor for public works he proposed to finance the Baku aqueduct, the longest water conduit in Europe which was ultimately financed by
Zeynalabdin Taghiyev
, image = Haji Zeynalabdin Taghiyev.jpg
, image_size = 250px
, caption =
, birth_date = 25 January 1823London Docks, and the Canadian Trent–Severn Waterway.
In 1912 he negotiated on behalf of the Chinese government the £5 million ''Crisp loan'' led by Charles Birch Crisp to the new
Republic of China
Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the northeast ...
.
Publications
* ''Partition of Palestine. Suggested alterations in proposed frontiers'' (Mar 1938), Apollo Press, London
* ''Origins of the Balfour Declaration: Dr. Weizmann's Contribution'' (1944), British Museum
Further reading
* Halabian, Martin H. (1962), ''The Zionism of James A. Malcolm, Armenian patriot'', MSc Other Thesis, Brandeis University, Dept. of Near Eastern and Judaic Studies