AN OTTOMAN-ENGLISH MERCHANT IN TANZIMAT ERA: HENRY JAMES HANSON AND HIS POSITION IN OTTOMAN COMMERCIAL LIFE

Abstract

The period after 1839 is known as the Tanzimat (restructuring) era. The significance of this era is that the initiative for modernization came from government officials with the compliance of the sultan. Economically, the Tanzimat, which marked the beginning of one of the most important turning points of Turkish-Ottoman history, has been intensively discussed after its proclamation in 1839. The second half of the Ottoman nineteenth century observed clear “Eurocentric Business Enterprises” in Ottoman economic and commercial life, consisting mostly of railway projects, as European centred commercial relations within international markets expanded. Reforms and changes in the commercial law system after the Tanzimat saw an increase in market efficiency of Levantine merchants in Ottoman domestic and foreign trade. Among these Levantine merchants, who were effective in Ottoman trade life, one the Hanson family, of English origin, attracted attention with their commercial relations and economic activities. Accordingly, Charles Simpson Hanson (1803-1874) who came to Istanbul for the first time in 1825 and settled for the purpose of commerce, along with his son Henry James Hanson (1838-1935), who was born in Istanbul, together engaged in several commercial fields namely finance, railway construction, imports and exports. Due to their wide range of business interests, the Hanson Family and their company became prominent among all the Levantine merchants that played a key role in 19th century Ottoman trade. This presentation examines different business practices within which Levantine merchants were involved in order to understand how they used Ottoman economic institutions as businessmen between the years 1839 and 1880. It aims to answer broad questions about the Hanson Family’s role in Ottoman domestic and foreign trade by using primary sources in the Ottoman Archive, the British National Archives and Oxford University Saint Anthony’s College Middle East Centre Archive. It will additionally draw from English and Turkish publications belonging to aforementioned period. These business manners which were applied by the Hanson Company shed light upon the activities of Levantine Merchants in the Ottoman Empire and their connections with statesmen through business partnerships after the Tanzimat Era. The Purpose and Questions In the field of economic history and the history of economic growth or development, there are some stereotypical questions that are frequently under consideration. At the macro level, it can be shown that the most important question is: Why are some countries or regions richer than others? In the field of business and commercial history, the questions are under the influence of more specific themes. The questions are mostly oriented towards the micro level such as firms, merchants, organization types and so on. Examining the changes in the commercial activities in accordance with financial activities of the British merchants as a foreign merchant in the Ottoman territory on the basis of private records of Hanson family can be shown main aim of this paper. In this paper, business activities of Hanson family will be dealt with by combining two questions from the general to the specific. First, with reference to nature of business history theory, biography of firms and their actors occur this paper’s general subjects. As a general question of this paper is: Which partnerships or co-operations of Hanson family affected the commercial-financial activities in the Ottoman Empire? Second, according to the Hanson Company’s records, we know that the commercial activities of Hanson Company and their private initiatives as bill broking in financial markets played some role in the interaction between finance and trade. In this context, the second question of this work is: Which institutions were used by Hansons in the financialcommercial merkets? How did they do these initiatives in financial sector? That is why, this paper can contribute some details for the understanding of interaction between trade and finance in the Ottoman Empire in the late nineteenth century. Method, Historiography and Sources Regarding the methodology of this research, commercial and financial activities and new institutional process method is mainly preferred. In this study, Hanson Family collection as private records have been examine and some secondary sources which are also concerned the commercial and financial activities od merchants in the Ottoman Empire were used. By the help of these records and secondary sources, the method of institutional process analysis combined with existing literature. In the historiography, beyond the general researches on the Ottoman economic system, in contrast, researches into British merchants, families and their operations relating to private companies in the Ottoman Empire are limited. Before the end of the sixteenth century, Ottoman and British political and economic relations had started with the establishment of the Levant Company. Although we know that a limited number of British merchants tried to do business without recourse and had permission to trade from Ottomans, it can be argued that commercial relations began with the Levant Company’s operations in the Ottoman territory certainly. Although the Levant Company was founded as a private corporation (named joint-stock and chartered company) by British merchants; it was under controlled by Queen Elizabeth I’s petition. This information points out the importance of publications related to the story of British merchants, their legal status in the Ottoman Empire, and history of the Levant Company for understanding the development of private cooperation in the Levant. However, only a limited number of studies about business enterprise in the Levant based on private records related to the companies of British merchants or families have been published in the existing literature. Therefore, we will try to examine the existing lite