o_19heefouak9i9v4do11ac41pi7a.pdf

ALIYE F. MATARACI
sent from Manchester to Istanbul to Rize, provides the name of the Manchester
branch, Djemil Mataradjizâde Son & Co 26 . He was not able to open an office during
his stay in Manchester and used the office of one of the Muslims in Manchester as
his contact address. İlyas insisted that Cemil learnt English as it was the main tool
to facilitate his integration into business circles in Manchester.
Language God willing you will have learnt how to read and write. Do
not give up on reading and writing. In your spare time, you should learn how to
read and write 27 .
The tone of the letters İlyas wrote to his younger brother reveals Cemil’s solitude
in Manchester. His expectations of help and guidance regarding business from his
immediate environment were obviously not being fulfilled. İlyas, acting as a mentor,
tried to provide the necessary help and guidance from Istanbul through his letters.
As a response to Cemil’s complaints about the difficulties of acquiring business
know-how in Manchester, İlyas, unsurprised at the hardships of a competitive business
environment and its effects on his brother, tried to encourage his brother to
learn it all through commercial practice and traders around him.
Business You say that you do not even want to ask them because they
do not teach anything and never talk good. God willing, you will learn a lot yourself
and actualize it. May God provide success in good health. Amen 28 .
Cemil’s immediate business environment in Manchester consisted mainly of Armenians
and a number of Muslims, whom I assume to be Ottoman subjects due to
their connections with the cotton market in Istanbul and İlyas’ acquaintance with
them. Whether these contacts were representative of the ethno-religious profile of
Ottoman commercial subjects in Manchester at the time requires further research.
Although İlyas acknowledged the presence of a Greek commercial community in
Manchester in his letter to his brother, Cemil quoted below, there was no mention of
any Greek name. Despite the well-documented literature on the Ottoman Greek
commercial presence in Manchester by the beginning of the nineteenth century 29 ,
the lack of any specific reference is quite striking. One possible explanation for their
absence from Cemil’s contacts might be their departure from the Ottoman cotton
market during the Balkan Wars, as suggested above.
One of the main sources on the Armenian commercial community in Manchester
is Joan George’s work on Armenian textile traders, small manufacturers or retailers
originally from the Ottoman lands 30 . Although the work is quite informative on the
26 Letter dated 21 July 1914.
27 Letter dated 21 April 1914.
28 Letter dated 7 April 1914.
29 Stanley D. Chapman, Merchant Enterprise in Britain : From the Industrial Revolution to
World War I (Cambridge [England] ; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992). Maria-
Christina Chatziioannou, ‘Greek Merchants in Victorian England', in Greek Diaspora and
Migration since 1700: Society, Politics and Culture, ed. Dimitris Tziovas (England: Ashgate, 2009).
30 I am grateful to Professor Maria-Christina Chatziiannou for bringing this work to my
attention. Joan George, Merchants in Exile: The Armenians in Manchester, England, 183-1935
~ 440 ~