HO 405/41031
Samuel Pashaian was born in Sivas, Armenia on July 24, 1882 to Krikor Pashaian and Mairam Pashaian, née Karadjian. The Metropolitan Police Report indicates that Samuel’s parents died when he was six years old and he was raised in an Armenian orphanage in Istanbul. He left the orphanage six years later and at the age of twelve was adopted by an Armenian family who apprenticed him to the carpet trade. Together with other Armenians, Samuel was expelled from Constantinople by the Ottoman government under Sultan Abdul Hamid (reigned 1876-1909) and returned to his birthplace Sivas, Armenia. The reference to the mass expulsion of Armenians from Istanbul in 1894 or shortly thereafter suggests that Samuel was a survivor of the first Armenian Genocide. In October 1905, he married Takouhi Keutchekian in Sivas, Armenia.
In 1910, Samuel returned to Istanbul, where he continued as a carpet repairer. The following year, he immigrated to England, where he worked as a carpet repairer with different firms. His wife Takouhi joined him in England in 1914. In 1916, he opened up his own business, trading as Armenian Carpet Repairing Co., at 2 Victoria Avenue, Bishopsgate, London, E.C. 2, still in operation by 1922.[1] For a time in the 1910s, Samuel employed Isaac Behar, an Ottoman Jew and native of Constantinople who had immigrated to the United Kingdom in 1914. At the time of his application for naturalization in the 1940s, Samuel operated his business assisted by his two sons, both of whom were British born and had served in the British military. Samuel and his wife lived at 16 Inderwick Road, Hornsey, London from 1918, in a house they purchased in 1924 for a £650 leasehold. The property was on the Land Registry and the lease ran for 99 years from 1886 at a ground rent of £6.6s per annum. Samuel and Takouhi had four children: Anahid Bournazian (born 7/24/1910 in Armenia; by 1947 resident in Tirana, Albania); Jirair (born 5/17/1915 in England, by 1947 resident in London); Herair (born 10/18/1917 in England, by 1947 resident in New York), and Haig (born 12/7/1919 in England, by 1947 resident in London).
At the time of his application, Samuel Pashaian was a carpet merchant and carpet repairer and owner of the Armenian Carpet Repairing Co., by that time located at 8 Devonshire Row, Bishopsgate, London. The firm advertised itself as “Artistic Repairers & Cleaners of Oriental Carpets, Tapestries & Aubussons” and “Dealers in High Grade Oriental Carpets & Rugs.” In 1947, he and his son Jirair Pashaian became partners in the company, with Pashaian père receiving seven twelfths of profits and his son the other five. Business accounts for 1945-1948 showed a starting capital balance of £554, which by the end of the period had risen to £1,462. The Home Office noted that the company appeared “to be in a fair way of business and enquiries in trade circles.” In his interview with Metropolitan Police, Samuel stated that he was “not interested in politics.” Samuel’s letterhead through 1949 displayed his nationality “Armenian,” and that of his two sons-partners as “British.”
The long residence of the Pashaian couple without citizenship meant that they had to register with the local police as aliens and periodically secure certificates of identity for travel abroad. Their first certificate of identity was dated April 11, 1927. In 1938, they traveled to Albania on holiday. In 1947, they traveled to France on holiday and to visit relatives there, while in 1948, they spent half a year in the U.S. on holiday and to visit their son. Their certificates of identity include two sets of photographs and matching physical descriptions. Samuel was 5 ft, 5 inches, had black hair, which in a second photo had turned to gray, brown eyes, a “normal” or “medium” nose, and a “round” face. His wife stood 5 feet, 3 inches, had gray hair, brown eyes, a “normal” nose, and a “round” face. Takouhi’s certificate of identity indicates that she was illiterate and signed her name with an “x.”
Samuel Pashaian had four referees, including Clement Ralph Wilson of 7 Drayton Gardens, Winchmore Hill, who had known him for over 30 years, “he having carried out Carpet repairs for my Company for this entire period.” Wilson noted in 1949 that Pashaian was “a very respected man in the trade” and had “three Sons, two of whom served in His Majesty’s Forces during the last War, the third being of low category carried out work of national importance.”
Samuel Pashaian had been in the U.K. for 38 years before he was naturalized on April 23, 1949. This file was originally classified until 2050.
[1] Third Supplement to The London Gazette (January 2, 1922): 49.