Sixteen years after his first visit, Nasir al-Din Shah, king of Iran 1848-96, made his second and last visit to England in the summer of 1889. Since his first visit in 1873, there had been no abatement in the Anglo-Russian rivalry for influence in Teheran. The Russians had stolen a march on the English, and Sir Henry Drummond Wolff, who had been appointed British minister in Persia in 1887 and fought hard to promote British commercial and political interests there, organized this visit.

On this second visit, like the first, the shah received Armenian, Jewish, and Parsee delegations all seeking better treatment for their compatriots in Persia. This lecture will focus on the letter from the Armenians in Manchester, which was delivered to the shah at Buckingham Palace; dated July 4, 1889, it was first auctioned in Paris in 2002 and was resold by Christie’s of London in 2005, when it was purchased for the British Library by Rev. Dr. Vrej Nersessian. Rev. Dr. Nersessian will also touch upon the extraordinary careers of two Persian Armenians of the period: Mirza Malkum Khan [Mekumian Hakob Hovsep', 1883-1908], Persian ambassador in London, and Hovhannes Khan Massehian [b.1864], diplomat and translator to the shah between 1895 and 1901.

The talk will take place in the Presentation Room, room 11348, and will be followed by a reception. Admission is free, and no reservations are required; seating is on a first-come basis.

The Rev. Dr. Vrej Nersessian (BD,PhD) was educated at the Armenian College in Calcutta, the Theological Seminary at Holy See of Etchmiadzin, and King’s College, University of London. He has served as the curator in charge of the books and manuscripts of the Christian Middle East at the British Library since 1975.