I have only very recently been introduced to the Levant Heritage website and have been surprised to find scarcely a mention of the Morier family in Smyrna (Izmir) and in Constantinople during the late 18th and early 19th centuries. One of the grandsons of Abraham Morier, born in Switzerland, set up a merchant house in Smyrna (Izmir) and was joined by a nephew, Isaac, born in 1750, in about 1767. His uncle, shortly before he died, arranged for Isaac to be put under British protection (he subsequently became a naturalised British subject) and to be looked after by the family of David Van Lennep whose wife was Anne Marie, the daughter of Maria de la Fontaine who had married Justinus Leytstar. Isaac brought his uncle’s customers into the Van Lennep business, but David later allowed him to set up on his own and in 1774 he was accepted as a member of the London-based Worshipful Levant Company. Four years later he married the Van Lennep daughter Elizabeth Clara. They had seven sons (of whom three died young) and three daughters. One of Elizabeth’s sisters later married into the distinguished British Waldegrave family, and another married the Comte de Chabannes la Palice, a cousin of Talleyrand. In 1787 Isaac moved with his family to London leaving his business in charge of his partner Wilkinson. His sons were educated in England and the two elder, Jack and James were sent in succession to work with Wilkinson in Smyrna between 1794 and 1805 when Isaac was appointed by the Levant Company as consul general in Constantinople, where he died in 1817.

Jack, James (who became a well-known writer of travel books about Persia and novels) and their younger brother David became British diplomats and led lives of some excitement and distinction in Turkey, Greece, Persia and elsewhere, described in my book “Ottoman and Persian Odysseys” [info] published in 1998 as a result of my being given access to a huge cache of the family letters which are now held by Balliol College Oxford. Unfortunately I had to decide to omit from my book many details in these letters of life in Smyrna while the Morier boys were there, but they are well worth the attention of anyone who would like to expand their knowledge in this field. But my book does cover in considerable detail events in Constantinople and Egypt and Greece during the Napoleonic wars (including the ‘secret’ British escape from Constantinople in 1807 and the Paget and Adair missions to restore relations with Turkey mentioned by Wendy Hilda James in her contribution to ‘Recollections’ in the web-site) in which the Moriers were closely involved.

Henry McKenzie Johnston, December 2011