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A long-time resident of the Cookhams launched her new book on Saturday at the Holy Trinity Parish Centre.
Joan George, of School Lane, has released a publication about British Armenians in London, entitled Merchants to Magnates, Intrigue and Survival: Armenians in London from 1900-2000.
Joan, who is a British Armenian herself, and in her 80s, held a tea party and intimate gathering to celebrate the release of her second book.
Joan George, Merchants in Exile: The Armenians of Manchester, England, 1835–1935
ISBN 1-903656-08-7
xv + 279 pages, paper, maps (including inset map), illustrations, index.
Price: UKŁ16.00 / US$24.00 plus shipping.
To order contact [email protected] or [email protected]
Pioneering Work on Manchester Armenians Debuts in London
Joan George was always curious about her Armenian ancestry. Her mother, born into Manchester's Armenian community, became assimilated when she married an Englishman. Despite having an English father, an English upbringing, and an English education, Joan's interest in her Armenian origins remained.
After over half a century in the south of England pursuing varied interests expressed in freelance writing. she decided to research the sociopolitical and family backgrounds of the Manchester Armenians—the merchants in exile. This book is the result.
She drew heavily on the oral and other testimonies of older members of the community. Moreover, she consulted sources in the British Library, the Public Record Office, the New Bodleian Library (Oxford), and Manchester's Central Library. The amount of relevant, hitherto unpublished material on Armenians was astonishing. Great publicity was given, in both houses of Parliament, the press, and public meetings, to the messacres and other atrocities perpetrated against Armenians during the reign of the paranoid Turkish sultan Abdulhamid II. The Manchester merchants' links with Turkey added yet another dimension to the events.
The prosperous Manchester Armenians consistently raised funds for their beleaguered compatriots. In 1920 they chartered three ships, filling them with clothing, medical supplies, and other necessities for the short-lived Republic of Armenia.
Politically to the left of centre, Joan George exposes the European powers' imperial interests in the declining Ottoman Empire as yet another factor in the Armenian tragedy.
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