Calouste Gulbenkian

Lore & Background

Gulbenkian's family are believed to be descendants of the Rshtunis, a noble Armenian family—Amira—centred on the Lake Van region in the 4th century AD. In the 11th century, the Rshtunis settled in Caesarea (now Kayseri), taking the name Vart Badrik, a Byzantine title. With the arrival of the Ottoman Turks, the Turkish equivalent of the name, Gülbenk, was adopted. The family had established themselves in the town of Talas and lived in the region until the mid-19th century, when they ultimately moved to Constantinople. Their property in Talas was ultimately confiscated and is currently owned by the Turkish Government. Gulbenkian's family established close relations with the House of Osman. By 1860, his father Sarkis Gulbenkian was an Armenian oil importer and exporter already heavily involved in the oil industry. Sarkis was an owner of several oil fields in the Caucasus, mainly in Baku, and was a representative of Alexander Mantashev's oil company. Sarkis Gulbenkian also provided oil to the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire. During Hagop Pasha's Directorship, and, subsequently, Ministry of the Privy Treasury under Sultan Abdulhamid II in 1879, Sarkis acquired the lucrative collection of taxes for the Privy Purse of Mesopotamia.

Reader's Guide

Calouste Sarkis Gulbenkian was born on 23 March 1869 in Scutari (Üsküdar), in the Ottoman capital Constantinople. He received his early education at Aramyan, a local Armenian elementary school. He then attended the Lycée Saint-Joseph French school and continued his studies at Robert College. These studies were cut short in 1884, when he moved to Marseille at the age of 15 to perfect his French at a high school there. Immediately afterwards his father sent him to be educated at King's College London, where he studied petroleum engineering. He was a brilliant student and graduated in 1887 at the age of 18 with a first-class degree in engineering and applied sciences. A year later, he went to Baku to examine the Russian oil industry and to further his knowledge of the oil industry. Gulbenkian later wrote an article entitled La Transcaucasie et la péninsule d'Apchéron; souvenirs de voyage which appeared in the Revue des deux Mondes. The article described his travels to Baku and the state of the oil industry in the region. It was eventually published as a book in 1891 in Paris. After Hagop Pasha's appointment as the Ottoman Minister of Finance in 1887, he had Calouste prepare an oil survey of Mesopotamia. To develop the oil survey, Calouste merely read travel books and interviewed railroad engineers that were surveying and building the Baghdad Railway. Gulbenkian's oil survey led Hagop Pasha to believe that vast oil deposits lay in Mesopotamia, to acquire tracts of land for the Sultan's oil reserves, and to establish the Ottoman oil industry in Mesopotamia. By 1895, he started his oil operation business. He had to return to the Ottoman Empire, but in 1896, Gulbenkian and his family fled the empire due to the Hamidian massacres of Armenians. They ended up in Egypt, where Gulbenkian met Alexander Mantashev, a prominent Armenian oil magnate and philanthropist. Mantashev introduced Gulbenkian to influential contacts in Cairo. These new acquaintances included Evelyn Baring, 1st Earl of Cromer. Still in his twenties, Gulbenkian moved to London in 1897 where he arranged deals in the oil business. He became a naturalised British citizen in 1902. In 1907, he helped arrange the merger of Royal Dutch Petroleum Company with "Shell" Transport and Trading Company Ltd. Gulbenkian emerged as a major shareholder of the newly formed company, Royal Dutch Shell. His policy of retain

Did You Know?

• Gulbenkian graduated from King's College London in 1887 with a first-class degree in engineering and applied sciences.
• He earned the nickname "Mr. Five Per Cent" for his policy of retaining five per cent of the shares of the oil companies he developed.
• The Red Line Agreement of July 1928 reserved 5% of the shares of the Turkish Petroleum Company for Gulbenkian.
• Gulbenkian amassed an art collection of over 6,400 pieces, including works from antiquity to the 20th century.