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MANCHESTER'S ARMENIAN PAST
Neil Roland
South Manchester
http://www.southmanchesterreporter.co.u k/news/columnist/neil_roland/s/1161883_manchesters _armenian_past
October 08, 2009
OUR house was built in the final years of Victoria's reign, and until
I bought it almost 20 ago, only one family had lived in it. Four
children have been born here in total. The most recent, our son, was
actually born at St Mary's but was returned here shortly afterwards,
so the romantic in me is happy to glide over such precision of fact.
The other three were named Arto, Adrine and Ara Arschavir (could
some subconscious desire to continue this chain of first vowel naming
have nudged me to give my son Asher as a middle name?) Even now, 98
years after the birth of Arto and just three weeks since his death,
this house is still offering up secrets and signs of their long and
happy tenure here.
On the third morning of the Didsbury Arts Festival, two elegant ladies
arrived at my home studio. They could well have been Sephardic Jewish
in appearance, but were in fact Armenian - two of the last members
of their generation to still live in Manchester, the city where this
most fascinating and attractive immigrant culture made its home.
Armenia has threaded links with Britain since the 13th century, when
Henry III exchanged letters with King Hetoum in which the Armenian
monarch appealled for help from the Crusaders. But it was from the
middle of the 19th century that Armenians started to settle here as
merchants. It was to Manchester that they came first, the earliest
silk merchants arriving in 1835. Hovsep Capamagian became the first
Armenian British national in 1847.
By the 1860s, there were some 30 Armenian merchants in business in
Manchester and a new influx escalated after the first wave of Armenian
persecutions in Ottoman Turkey in the 1880s. This culminated in the
Armenian genocide of 1915, which saw, over the following decade, the
deportation and murder of more than one and a half million Armenians
living within the Otto enly to have recognised in the face of Turkish
reluctance ever since.
The ladies who arrived that morning, with Guessarian and Doudian,
reminded me of Adrine Arschavir, known to all as Kitty. It is something
in the eyes - a lively, warm, dark intelligence and quite distinct
from any other group. They of course had known the Arschavirs for
many decades, and knew the house well - recalling with fondness
the delicious meals prepared by Harriet, the family's maid, who had
lived here in what is now our bedroom, and of the Arschavir parents,
Madeleine and Levon, and Auntie Eugenie Gurdjikian - who had lived
for some 80 years in the attic bedroom now occupied by our son.
Just like Didsbury's Sephardic Jewish community, which settled here
from the countries of the Middle East in the 19th and early 20th
century as merchants, they were fortunate to find a haven here. While
co-religionists in Europe were persecuted, the Armenian community
in Manchester set about establishing an admirable infrastructure of
support for their compatriots suffering abroad. In 1920, the Manchester
Armenians chartered three ships filled with clothing and medical
supplies for those attempting to survive in the short-lived Republic
of Armenia, while the Armenian Ladies Association (1907) sought to
help those abroad and integrate Armenians into local British society.
The Manchester community's first spiritual leader was Rev Father
Garabed Shahnazarian, who celebrated the first Armenian Holy Mass in
a rented chapel in 1863 and presided over the establishment of the
Holy Trinity Apostolic Church - Britain's first Armenian Church -
seven years later. The church, on Upper Brook Street, continues to
serve the community today, though no longer has its own priest.
The parallels with the Jewish community seem apparent. So much so,
that when former Manchester High School pupil Adrine Yegwart of
Withington met her future husband, Mancunian Lance Middleton, his way
of describing what Armenians were like to his parents was like Jews,
but Chr er the first Armenian visitors also brought back memories of
Kitty Arschavir, who until retirement taught in Northenden at Bazeley
Road Primary School. Bursting with life, twinkling with affection
and keenly interested in the fascinations of the world around them.
The local Armenian community is dwindling now. As Joan George,
author of the fascinating seminal work on Manchester's Armenians,
'Merchants In Exile 1835-1935' acknowledged, like every community the
first generation often absorbs itself in its new surroundings. There
is assimilation and it is up to the second generation to rediscover
the past. There are an estimated 15,000 to 18,000 Armenians living in
the UK today, but Manchester's have all but disappeared to assimilation
to London and beyond.
The inspirational cookery writer and excellent abstract artist Arto
der Haroutunian, who died aged 47 just over 20 years ago, founded
with his brother in 1970 what most Mancunians think of when they
think of Armenia - the original Armenian Taverna in Albert Square. It
is still a real, if time-warped, gastronomic gem. David Dickinson,
who was adopted by a couple in Cheadle Heath, discovered that his
natural grandfather was an Armenian silk merchant who traded on the
same Manchester streets in 1910 as David did half a century later.
As for the Arschavirs - Ara and Arto (Archie) - both became architects
(try saying Archie Arschavir the architect!). Ara moved to Oxford
and Archie to Hull, before returning to Didsbury. I feel privileged
to have met Archie on several occasions. He reminded me of Picasso
with his glossy, clever eyes and look of mischief. And even now,
20 years after moving into the house in which they were all born,
I am discovering evidence of that mischief. Arto scratched into the
odd brick and door frame and just last week, the sun glinting on a
bedroom window, I saw an intriguingly provocative comment scratched
in the glass three quarters of a century ago.
www.neilroland.co.uk
Neil Roland
South Manchester
http://www.southmanchesterreporter.co.u k/news/columnist/neil_roland/s/1161883_manchesters _armenian_past
October 08, 2009
OUR house was built in the final years of Victoria's reign, and until
I bought it almost 20 ago, only one family had lived in it. Four
children have been born here in total. The most recent, our son, was
actually born at St Mary's but was returned here shortly afterwards,
so the romantic in me is happy to glide over such precision of fact.
The other three were named Arto, Adrine and Ara Arschavir (could
some subconscious desire to continue this chain of first vowel naming
have nudged me to give my son Asher as a middle name?) Even now, 98
years after the birth of Arto and just three weeks since his death,
this house is still offering up secrets and signs of their long and
happy tenure here.
On the third morning of the Didsbury Arts Festival, two elegant ladies
arrived at my home studio. They could well have been Sephardic Jewish
in appearance, but were in fact Armenian - two of the last members
of their generation to still live in Manchester, the city where this
most fascinating and attractive immigrant culture made its home.
Armenia has threaded links with Britain since the 13th century, when
Henry III exchanged letters with King Hetoum in which the Armenian
monarch appealled for help from the Crusaders. But it was from the
middle of the 19th century that Armenians started to settle here as
merchants. It was to Manchester that they came first, the earliest
silk merchants arriving in 1835. Hovsep Capamagian became the first
Armenian British national in 1847.
By the 1860s, there were some 30 Armenian merchants in business in
Manchester and a new influx escalated after the first wave of Armenian
persecutions in Ottoman Turkey in the 1880s. This culminated in the
Armenian genocide of 1915, which saw, over the following decade, the
deportation and murder of more than one and a half million Armenians
living within the Otto enly to have recognised in the face of Turkish
reluctance ever since.
The ladies who arrived that morning, with Guessarian and Doudian,
reminded me of Adrine Arschavir, known to all as Kitty. It is something
in the eyes - a lively, warm, dark intelligence and quite distinct
from any other group. They of course had known the Arschavirs for
many decades, and knew the house well - recalling with fondness
the delicious meals prepared by Harriet, the family's maid, who had
lived here in what is now our bedroom, and of the Arschavir parents,
Madeleine and Levon, and Auntie Eugenie Gurdjikian - who had lived
for some 80 years in the attic bedroom now occupied by our son.
Just like Didsbury's Sephardic Jewish community, which settled here
from the countries of the Middle East in the 19th and early 20th
century as merchants, they were fortunate to find a haven here. While
co-religionists in Europe were persecuted, the Armenian community
in Manchester set about establishing an admirable infrastructure of
support for their compatriots suffering abroad. In 1920, the Manchester
Armenians chartered three ships filled with clothing and medical
supplies for those attempting to survive in the short-lived Republic
of Armenia, while the Armenian Ladies Association (1907) sought to
help those abroad and integrate Armenians into local British society.
The Manchester community's first spiritual leader was Rev Father
Garabed Shahnazarian, who celebrated the first Armenian Holy Mass in
a rented chapel in 1863 and presided over the establishment of the
Holy Trinity Apostolic Church - Britain's first Armenian Church -
seven years later. The church, on Upper Brook Street, continues to
serve the community today, though no longer has its own priest.
The parallels with the Jewish community seem apparent. So much so,
that when former Manchester High School pupil Adrine Yegwart of
Withington met her future husband, Mancunian Lance Middleton, his way
of describing what Armenians were like to his parents was like Jews,
but Chr er the first Armenian visitors also brought back memories of
Kitty Arschavir, who until retirement taught in Northenden at Bazeley
Road Primary School. Bursting with life, twinkling with affection
and keenly interested in the fascinations of the world around them.
The local Armenian community is dwindling now. As Joan George,
author of the fascinating seminal work on Manchester's Armenians,
'Merchants In Exile 1835-1935' acknowledged, like every community the
first generation often absorbs itself in its new surroundings. There
is assimilation and it is up to the second generation to rediscover
the past. There are an estimated 15,000 to 18,000 Armenians living in
the UK today, but Manchester's have all but disappeared to assimilation
to London and beyond.
The inspirational cookery writer and excellent abstract artist Arto
der Haroutunian, who died aged 47 just over 20 years ago, founded
with his brother in 1970 what most Mancunians think of when they
think of Armenia - the original Armenian Taverna in Albert Square. It
is still a real, if time-warped, gastronomic gem. David Dickinson,
who was adopted by a couple in Cheadle Heath, discovered that his
natural grandfather was an Armenian silk merchant who traded on the
same Manchester streets in 1910 as David did half a century later.
As for the Arschavirs - Ara and Arto (Archie) - both became architects
(try saying Archie Arschavir the architect!). Ara moved to Oxford
and Archie to Hull, before returning to Didsbury. I feel privileged
to have met Archie on several occasions. He reminded me of Picasso
with his glossy, clever eyes and look of mischief. And even now,
20 years after moving into the house in which they were all born,
I am discovering evidence of that mischief. Arto scratched into the
odd brick and door frame and just last week, the sun glinting on a
bedroom window, I saw an intriguingly provocative comment scratched
in the glass three quarters of a century ago.
www.neilroland.co.uk