William Gifford Palgrave and Trabzon Consulate

Among the foreign consulates established in Trabzon, the British consulate continued its existence in the city for many years as the most active and effective consulate in the city in parallel with the Ottoman-British relations. It is possible to understand this from the rich archives left behind by the British consulate. In this institution, which was established in 1830 with the political and commercial concerns of the British, Stevens served as consul for a long time after James Brant and Henry Suter. However, the British government appointed William Gifford Palgrave, who had quite different characteristics from his predecessors, in 1867. Palgrave was a traveler and orientalist who went to India after his education at Trinity College, Oxford, and served in the British army, and became famous for his travels in Arabia in 1862-1863 and his work on these travels. Palgrave, who entered the British Foreign Ministry in 1866, was appointed as the consul to Sohumkale in the same year, and was transferred to Trabzon after a year of duty there. He continued his duty here until the beginning of 1873. The subject of this study is to evaluate the Trabzon consulate of William Gifford Palgrave through British archive documents. There are many documents in The National Archives between the years 1867-1873, when Palgrave served in Trabzon. It is possible to make evaluations about the consular period of Palagrave through these documents. Accordingly, Palgrave devoted a significant part of his time in Trabzon to the trips he had made in the region. In this respect, Palgrave demonstrated his passion for travel, which he showed before starting his diplomatic career, during the time he served as consul in Trabzon, with trips in the consular area, which lasted from one side to the Russian border and to Central Anatolia on the other hand, in the quite large consulate region. Palgrave's consulate and the reports it prepared are very important in that the political and military missions of the British consuls in the region started to come to the fore and their duty areas coincided with an important turn. The study consists of an introduction and four chapters. The first part of the work is based on the biography of William Gifford Palgrave. In order to better understand Palgrave's consulate, the previous duties of the consul are presented here. Regarding his term of office in Trabzon, the works written by the consul himself were used. In the second and third part, the trips which Palgrave made in the consulate area in 1867 and 1872 were evaluated. In these trips, Palgrave reveals the administrative structure of the places he traveled within the borders of the province and some important details like this. In the fourth part of the study, the reports prepared by Palgrave on subjects such as population, administration, tax system, military situation and working condition based on his travels in the region, were evaluated.