Friday 13 September 2019

On Nicholas and Samuel Strani (Strane/Stranis); British Consular Officials



Nicholas Strané (Strani/Stranis), Consul at Patras/Morea and Samuel Strané (Strani/Stranis), Consul-General for the Morea, Patras/Morea



List of British Consular Officials in the Ottoman Empire and its former territories, from the sixteenth century to about 1860 (pdf) - Notes Compiled by David Wilson

http://www.levantineheritage.com/pdf/List_of_British_Consular_Officials_Turkey(1581-1860)-D_Wilson.pdf

Extracts:

~[Consul at Patras styled “Consul-General for the Morea” in late 18th century [Wood]]

Nicholas Strane (?Nikolaos Stranis) C at Patras 1785 [LonCal], C 1802 [Hunt], C 1809 [BIC]] [Strane was a prosperous merchant who exported sponges, olive oil, currants and fustic wood, and imported cloth, firearms, cutlery &c. [CunnhmAOE]; he shipped Ld. Elgin’s Orchmenos inscriptions back to England in 1802 [Hunt]] [cf. letter from Nicholas Strane to Airey 15 July 1812 [Papers of Lord William H. Cavendish Bentinck, Nottingham University Library, Pw Jd 142]] [letters from “Consul Strane” to Levant Company 1807 [Zante],1809 & 1810 [Patras] are quoted by Wagstaff – some may be from Samuel Strani/Strané below]

Samuel Strani (or Strané) CG in the Morea 1810 [Cochran, p. 57, n. 99] [“Consul Strane” 1810-1812 [FO 352/1, 2A, 3]] [“Mr Stranie, English Consul at Patrass . . . he is a native of Zante . . . very rich” [Bramsen, vol. 2, pp. 46, 95, (Nov 1814)]]

[Although Zante was not under Ottoman Rule, the Levant Company had appointed native vice-consuls in 1616 and again in 1626. There was an English-born official there from at least 1628 [Epstein, p. 216; Wood, pp. 66-67; Dickie, p. 60]. The precise status of the early English representatives is not always clear – nor is their location, which might be Zante, Cephalonia or the Morea. After the Restoration the consuls were appointed by the Crown and reported to the Commissioners for Trade and Plantations [Wood, p. 121]. Although trade with Zante was negligible by the 1770s [Wood], consuls continued to be appointed until the establishment of British  administration in the Ionian Islands in 1815. It seems that until about 1780 they were also responsible for the Morea (q.v.).] 






Samuel Strani (Strané), tombstone, Zakynthos , 
with kind acknowledgements for the photographs to 
Μαρία Σιδηροκαστρίτη-Κοντονή


See also: The Diary of John Cam Hobhouse

John Cam Hobhouse, diary mention of Strane 


"Strané had been on the "Spider", which brought Byron and Hobhouse
from Malta to Patras and Prevesa"

(Volume I of Byron's Letter and Journals, edited by Leslie A. Marchand, footnote p 229-230).


Rev. Thomas Smart Hughes, Travels in Sicily, Greece, and Albania, 1820:





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