Author: Yeghisabet Arthur

My friend Luke David lives in Bristol, England. He is patrilineally descended from the distinguished Armenian family of 19th century old Dhaka, with the surname of David. In brief here is their story.

Luke David's paternal ancestor, his great-great-grandfather Marcar David (1833–1893), an Armenian, was born in Bushehr or Bushire in Persia (Iran), which had for centuries been the main trade centre of Iran because of its thriving port. However, by the time Marcar decided to emigrate to India, the once busy port at Bushehr had already started to lose its position as the primary port of Iran due to shallow anchorage, thereby losing navigability to large sea/ocean-going cargo ships and, consequently faced a steady decline in trade, commerce and job prospects.

In 1854, at the age of 21, Marcar arrived in Calcutta, then an important commercial centre and a bustling port city. At that time, Calcutta had a prosperous Armenian mercantile community. It was also the capital of British India. One of the richest and most influential Armenian business magnate of 19th century Calcutta, Aratoon Apcar, became Marcar's close friend and eventually a trustee on his will.

In Calcutta, Marcar, initially started out as a small trader dealing in essentials like rice, pulses, spices, oil-seeds etc. However, he was a visionary with great ambition and gifted with an astute business acumen. He had closely followed the thriving jute trading in Calcutta in which the Armenians were involved. However, the source of the jute industry originated from East Bengal (Bangladesh), in which the wealthy Dhaka Armenians were not only the pioneering merchants, but also enjoyed a pervasive monopoly. Therefore, he soon relocated to Dhaka with his family and involved himself in the jute business and diligently worked upwards to become the most successful trader in East Bengal, which eventually earned him the enviable sobriquet of the “Merchant-Prince of East Bengal”. His jute-bailing firm of M. David & Co., in Narayanganj along with other successful Armenian firms dealing in jute flourished beyond expectation. Within a decade he had turned fabulously wealthy and, was the first to open up Chittagong port to ship jute goods directly to England, bypassing the port in Calcutta, and thereby greatly reducing the cost of shipment which enhanced his profits manifold.

While in East Bengal, Marcar David maintained establishments both in Dhaka and Narayanganj, then a busy jute trading centre and river port. It can be presumed with a degree of certainty that in Dhaka he lived in Armanitola, the Armenian quarter in old Dhaka, which still goes by that name. His sisters, Mariam and Sophia and brother Gadarniah were also members of his household for some time. Mariam went on to marry one Melitus, probably a Greek from Dhaka. Sophia married, W L Alexander, whose family had prospered in the shipping business in Calcutta, and had once employed Aratoon Apcar. Sophia and Alexander's son, David Alexander, was last known to have been trading in jute in Dhaka in 1937.

Marcar married Elizabeth Manook (also Manuk) of the renowned Armenian zamindar (feudal landlord) family of Dhaka. The Manook's along with four other Armenian families were prominent zamindars, merchants and philanthropists of 19th century Dhaka.

It is interesting to note Elizabeth David's (née Manook) maternal family lineage. Her ancestor Thomas Frankland Thirkell, an Englishman, married Mary Ann Flouest in Calcutta in 1812. Mary's mother was a Hindustani (Bengali) called Jeanne in Calcutta, while her father, Nicholas Flouest, was a Frenchman. The daughter of Thomas Thirkell and Mary Flouest, named Mary Ann Thirkell, was born in Calcutta in 1813. She married one George Kallonas, a Greek from Dhaka in 1830 and, appears to have moved to Dhaka permanently where their daughter Erin Maria Kallonas was born in 1832. In 1847, Erin, at the tender age of 14, married Callisthan Johannes Manook, then 18 years of age, a scion of the wealthy Armenian Manook family of Dhaka. They had at least six children including Elizabeth Manook (Marcar's wife) born in 1849. Elizabeth's other siblings were her brothers David Manook, George Manook and Gregory Manook and sisters Sophie Manook and Eugenie Manook, who married Peter Nicholas Pogose of the notable Armenian Pogose family of Dhaka.

As already mentioned, Elizabeth Manook married Marcar David in Dhaka. They had eight children of whom six survived into adulthood, while two died at infancy. Sadly, Elizabeth herself died young, aged only 29, of cholera in Dhaka in 1878. Her splendid tomb, is the finest surviving example of a Christian funerary monument in marble in the country. It has a beautifully sculpted full-sized statute of a slightly reclining maiden with closed eyes, seemingly in a mournful state, placed on top of the tomb's plinth. Elizabeth's tomb has remained miraculously intact, having withstood the ravages of time and escaped the cruel hammer of vandals. It can be seen today at the historic Christian Cemetery at Narinda, Wari, in Dhaka. The epitaph inscribed on the plinth of her tomb reads thus:

In affectionate memory of Elizabeth. The wife of Marcar David, who died on 18 November 1878. Aged 29 yrs 8 mths 6 days. Heaven is my home. Llewelyn & Co, Sculptors, Calcutta.

A bereaved Marcar David took his children to London from Dhaka in 1879, a year after the untimely demise of his wife Elizabeth. He had done so to ensure their safety. Diseases which were usually fatal in those days in the tropics impelled him to permanently relocate his children there. Initially he had intended to return to Dhaka from London to carry on with his lucrative businesses. However, it is not exactly clear why he later changed his mind and decided to stay back in London for good.

In London, Marcar and his family settled down in Princes Square, Bayswater. In the meantime, Marcar, who must have carried a substantial amount of wealth from Dhaka, invested wisely and heavily in property in London. He bought the freeholds on approximately 150 houses from Shepherds Bush and Battersea, to Kensington and Paddington. Marcar David died in London in 1893 and is buried in the historic Kensal Green Cemetery there.

Of Marcar's six children the youngest was a son named Markham David (1877–1942). He was born in Dhaka and was moved to London when he was just two years of age. He is the great-grandfather of my friend Luke David. Markham married Celteste Wauton and had three children, sons Charles David, Hugh David and Aubery David. Aubery is the grandfather of Luke David. Markham David settled in Monmouthshire, a historic county in South East Wales. He was awarded the prestigious Distinguished Service Order (DSO) for his bravery in World War I, while serving as a Major with the Royal Monmouthshire Engineers. Subsequently, he became the Lord Lieutenant of Monmouthshire, where he died and lies buried.

Markham's son Aubrey David (1903–1967) of Monmouthshire, was a Royal Navy lieutenant commander entrusted with protecting the merchant shipping convoys in the Arctic Ocean during World War II. He had seven children. One of his sons, Antony David (born 1937), is a retired landscape architect who lives near Brecon, Wales. He is the father of Luke David, a TV producer with the BBC in Bristol, England. I am greatly indebted to Luke for his generous help in providing me with vital information on the history of the David family, including the valuable images, without which this feature article would not have been possible.

Waqar A Khan is Founder, Bangladesh Forum for Heritage Studies.