HO 144/879/165573 and HO 334/46/17667
For Gregory’s brother Agop, click here. For Gregory’s brother Balthazar, click here.
Gregory Agopian was born in Smyrna on September 23, 1875 to Garabet Marguerite Agopian and Tacouhie Agopian, both subjects of the Ottoman Empire like himself. Gregory’s father Garabet had been chief dragoman to the Belgian consulate in Smyrna for over half a century. Gregory first arrived in England in 1898, where he remained a few months before returning to his country. He next came to England in September 1902, settling in Manchester.
The following year, he took up a position at Calico Printers Association Limited, 56 Mosley Street, Manchester. He spent about eight months in 1905-1906 traveling in Smyrna, Beirut, Greece and other South European countries on the business of his employers. By 1908, the year of his naturalization application, Gregory served as a chief of a department within the Thornliebank Company Limited, a branch of the Calico Printers Association Limited at 43 Portland Street, and had signed an agreement to remain with that branch for a further two years.
His stated motivations for applying for naturalization were that he regarded England as his adopted country , desired to “continue and improve his position in his said business to provide for his later years and sustenance,” and intended to marry a “a lady who was a natural born British subject.” Gregory had two residential referees, a salesman and a director, respectively, of his Calico printing firm in Manchester; a referee who had served 21 years as police surgeon in Lancashire County, another calico printer, and a cashier. There was some back-and-forth with the Home Office about whether Gregory should list himself as a married man or not, given his imminent marriage to Miss Smith of Stockport (southeast of Manchester). He ended up marrying at the age of 33, six weeks after his citizenship papers had been processed in 1908.
Gregory Agopian’s travel in the Ottoman Empire on behalf of the Calico Printers’ Association ended on a sour note. In April 1906, he departed Beirut with his colleague Mr. Hilton for Constantinople, where he was arrested by the Ottoman authorities, interrogated, imprisoned overnight, and then deported to Smyrna. While in prison, he was not permitted to contact the British consul or any of his colleagues. The association noted that Agopian had been periodically harassed by Ottoman authorities ever since his arrival in the region, including detention in Smyrna in December of 1905 for payment of a military tax and imprisonment in Beirut the following April. In May of 1906, FO officials concluded that “British Firms should not employ Armenians as travelling agents in Ottoman Dominions” and refused to intervene. They further noted that members “of this nationality [Armenians] are always treated as Ottoman Subjects in the Turkish Empire, whether they have become naturalized subjects of a foreign State or not. At the present moment all Armenians and especially those who have resided abroad and return to this country are objects of suspicion in the eyes of the Turkish Authorities and are subjected to onerous police regulations and surveillance, and His Majesty’s Consular Officers have no legal right to intervene on their behalf more specially, as in Mr. Agopian’s case, the Armenian has not become a naturalized British Subject.” FO officials further noted that they received continual requests “to interfere on behalf of Armenian subjects of the Porte,” which tended to produce “friction” with the Minister of Police.
This file was closed until 2009.