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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 January 2016
There has been some controversy recently over the identity of the first mayor of Nicosia during British rule. This paper seeks to clarify the issue by putting it into context. What was Nicosia like between 1878 and 1882? What exactly do we mean by the words ‘mayor’ and ‘municipal council’? How was the town administered then and how and to what extent did municipal procedures change in the subsequent years? The material researched suggests that the unusual circumstances of the occupation created a prolonged period of transition during which basic municipal functions were essentially directed by British officials. It was not until 1882 that a substantial shift from an Ottoman to a more British colonial form of administration took place. The resulting reforms provided the islanders with a judiciary independent of the executive, and a partially elected legislature. Nicosia was, on the whole, slower than the coastal towns to make the most of the opportunity for municipal self-government that the new legislation also offered.
1 Holland, R. and Markides, D., The British and the Hellenes: Struggles for Mastery in the Eastern Mediterranean 1850-1960 (Oxford 2006) 164-5Google Scholar.
2 Mallock, W. H., In an Enchanted Island or A Winter’s Retreat in Cyprus (London 1889) 85 Google Scholar.
3 Report of British Vice-Consul in Larnaca, 15 April 1867, for a parliamentary paper on Turkey, cited in Luke, H., Cyprus under the Turks (London 1969) 217 Google Scholar and ‘Report on Polis Chrysochou’, where the mudir, son of the kaimakam of the Papho sanjak, had ‘also supervision of the customs guard and the municipality’: [C. 2543], Cyprus: Report by Her Majesty’s High Commissioner for the Year 1879 (London 1880) 164.
4 The concept of a municipality as a legal corporation was not introduced into Turkish law until 1930. See Lewis, B., The Emergence of Modern Turkey, 3rd edn (Oxford 2002) 393–100 Google Scholar. More generally, Eldem, E., Goffman, D. and Masters, B., The Ottoman City between East and West: Aleppo, Izmir and Istanbul (Cambridge 2001)Google Scholar discusses the extent to which some sort of a common identity did emerge in these cities, especially during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
5 Ibid., 398-9.
6 The population of Nicosia had halved during the three hundred years of Ottoman rule. At the end of Venetian rule (1571), it was 20,000 to 25,000. In 1878, it was little over 11,000. See Arbel, B., ‘Cypriot Population under Venetian Rule (1453-1571): A Demographic Study’, Μελέται και Ύπομνήματα, 1 (1984) 184–214 Google Scholar, 196-8, and the 1881 Census statistics, in Attalides, M., Social Change and Urbanisation in Cyprus: A Study of Nicosia (Nicosia 1981) 103 Google Scholar.
7 Salvator, L., Levkosia: The Capital of Cyprus (London 1983 Google Scholar; original German edition Prague 1873), for a description of Nicosia towards the end of Ottoman rule. See also the plan of Nicosia drawn by Kitchener in 1881 for a graphic view of the extent of open space within the walls, Demi, D., The Walled City of Nicosia: Typology Study (Nicosia 1997) 44 Google Scholar.
8 Luke, Cyprus under the Turks, 220.
9 [C.3092], Cyprus: Report by Her Majesty’s High Commissioner for the Year 1880 (London 1881) 3.
10 Lewis, The Emergence, 394-400. Under Sultan Abdulhamid (1876-1909), the office of prefecture (Sehr-emanet) and governor (Vali) of Istanbul had, in fact, been exercised by the same person.
11 Cavendish, A. (ed.), Cyprus 1878: The Journal of Garnet Wolseley (Nicosia 1991) 28 Google Scholar.
12 Salvator, Levkosia, 45, Constantinides, K. A., H Αγγλική Κατοχή της Κύπρου (Nicosia 1930) 62 Google Scholar.
13 Ibid., 51.
14 Ibid., 50-5 and Mallock, In an Enchanted Island, 85.
15 Cavendish, Cyprus 1878, 28.
16 See section entitled ‘Water Vakfs’ in Yildiz, N., ‘The Vakf institution in Ottoman Cyprus’, in Michael, M., Kappler, M. and Gavriel, E. (eds), Ottoman Cyprus (Wiesbaden 2009) 140-3Google Scholar. For the state of repair of the Nicosia water supply in 1878 see file entitled ‘Water Commission 1878’, SA02: 335/78, CSA (State Archive of the Republic of Cyprus).
17 Cavendish, Cyprus 1878, 33.
18 Lewis, The Emergence, 396; Lewis, B., ‘Baladiyya’, in The Encyclopedia of Islam, 2nd edn, I (Leiden 1986) 972-9Google Scholar.
19 The Cyprus Gazette, 17 January 1879, V21/20, CSA.
20 Lewis, The Emergence, 399.
21 In June 1879 Colonel White, then acting as Nicosia District Commissoner, reported to the Chief Secretary as follows: ‘the whole council has served over the two years prescribed by Art.113, 29 Sewal 1287, page 36.’ White was referring to the 1870 law as published in the French language by Gregoris Aristarchi Bey in Législation Ottomane (Constantinople 1873) 33. This was the edition of Ottoman Legislation, it seems, with which each British commissioner was provided. The author has in her possession a volume of this edition stamped with the official stamp of the commissioner of Famagusta.
22 See correspondence between the chief secretary and district commissioners - responses to an enquiry into how the municipalities and municipal elections were currently run from October to December 1879, SA1: 7533/79, CSA.
23 Ibid.
24 Lewis, The Emergence, 398-9.
25 Mitchell to Queen’s Advocate, 15 December 1879, SA1: 7533, CSA.
26 See note 19.
27 Salvator, Levkosia, 69.
28 Seager to Queen’s Advocate, 25 October 1879, SA1: 7533, CSA.
29 In 1877, the Ottoman Empire defaulted on the 1855 Crimean War loan which was guaranteed by the British and French Governments. The tribute paid to the Sultan (calculated at £92,800, more than half the average annual revenue of the island) was pledged, together with part of the Egyptian Tribute, for servicing this loan. The Cypriot tribute was therefore sequestered after 1878 by the British Treasury to pay the annual interest to the bondholders. See Georghallides, G. S., A Political and Administrative History of Cyprus 1918-1926 (Nicosia 1979) 15–37 Google Scholar.
30 Memorandum on the Finances and Administration of Cyprus, Enclosure No. 1, in Colonial Office to Treasury, 11 May 1883, [C - 3661] Papers relating to the Administration and Finances of Cyprus, 72.
31 Luke, Cyprus under the Turks, 226, for details of the rousoumat tax.
32 Dionysiou, G., ‘Τα δημαρχεία στην Κύπρο επί Τουρκοκρατίας κοα στις αρχές της Αγγλικής κατοχής’, Κυπριακός Λόγος 12.69-72 (1980) 303-11Google Scholar.
33 [C.2543], 41.
34 See n.19.
35 Evkaf is the Ottoman plural of Vakf.
36 ‘Nicosia: Report on Public Works’, [C.3385], Cyprus: Report by Her Majesty’s High Commissioner for the Year 1881 (London 1882) 30-1.
37 Dionysiou, ‘Τα δημαρχεία’, 308-9.
38 Report and correspondence of the Water Commission for October and November 1878, SA02: 335/79, CSA.
39 Ibid. A ‘water measure’ indicated the right to divert water from the main water channel to a private property at a given time for a given time.
40 Memorandum on the Finances and Administration of Cyprus, Enclosure No. 1, in Colonial Office to Treasury, 11 May 1883, [C.3661], Papers relating to the Administration and Finances of Cyprus, 21-2.
41 Ibid.
42 White to Chief Secretary, 15 June 1879, SA02: 784A/79, CSA.
43 From district commissioner of Nicosia to Chief Secretary, 15 June 1879, ibid., and reply from Chief Secretary: ‘the municipality must carry on its duty with the remaining members’.
44 Seager to Chief Secretary, Falkland Warren, 20 August 1879 and Warren to Seager, 23 August 1879, ibid.
45 Letter from Ahmet Barutçuzade to the High Commissioner, 29 December 1879, SA1: 9252/79, courtesy of Aristides Coudounaris.
46 Warren to Seager, Troodos, 11 October 1879 and Queen’s Advocate to Warren, 10 October 1879, SA03: 1134/79, CSA.
47 See correspondence between the chief secretary and district commissioners - responses to an enquiry into how the municipalities and municipal elections were currently run in October 1879, SA1: 7533, CSA.
48 Ibid.
49 Ibid., especially Mitchell to Queen’s Advocate, 9 December 1879.
50 For a biographical note on Peristianis see Coudounaris, A., Βιογραφικόν Λεξικόν Κυπρίων 1800-1920 (Nicosia 2010) 476 Google Scholar.
51 A Memorial, that is a statement of facts as a basis for a petition to the monarch or his or her representatives, was the main form of political protest organized by Cypriot political and religious leaders during the early years of British rule.
52 FO Correspondence in [C.4319], June to December 1879,140-70 cited in Hill, G., A History of Cyprus, IV (Cambridge 1952) 417 Google Scholar. See also K. Tornarides, Ητοπική αυτοδιοίκησιςεν Κύπρω (Nicosia, no date), part III. Tornarides concludes that the 1877 Vilayet law was not enforced in Cyprus. See also Zannetos, F., Ιστορία της νήσου Κύπρου από της Αγγλικής Κατοχής μέχρι σήμερον, II (Larnaca 1911) 149-50Google Scholar.
53 See file SAO3: 1361/79, CSA, August to December 1879, headed ‘Christian population report reasons for not attending the meeting announced by the municipality for the election of three Christian members’.
54 See correspondence between the chief secretary and district commissioners - responses to an enquiry into how the municipalities and municipal elections were currently run in October 1879, file SAO1: 7533/79, CSA.
55 ‘Report for the Larnaca District’, [C.3772], Cyprus: Report by Her Majesty’s High Commissioner for the Year 1882 (London 1883) 85.
56 Biddulph to Kimberley, June 24 1881, [C.3385], 13. The high commissioner is referring to the 1882 Municipal Ordinance.
57 [C.3385], 31.
58 ‘We are not so much to reform Turkish law and institutions as to purify them’: entry in Wolseley’s diary for Saturday, 17 August 1878. See Cavendish, , Cyprus 1878, 51 Google Scholar.
59 The Cyprus Gazette, 22 June 1880 and 7 July 1880, V21/2, CSA.
60 See file on Foreign Office and Colonial Office dispatch respecting the Municipal Councils Ordinance which is to be repealed and re-enacted, SA1: 7543, CSA.
61 Letter from Chief Secretary to Crown Agents forwarding a draft of the Municipal Councils Ordinance requesting them to print twenty copies, November 1881, SA1: 7546/81, CSA.
62 Order for Municipal elections by the high commissioner, Sir Walter Sendall, The Cyprus Gazette, 29 June 1895, V21/20, CSA.
63 The Cyprus Gazette 26 June 1882, V21/2, CSA.
64 The Cyprus Gazette, 16 June 1882, V21/2, CSA.
65 Municipal Ordinance 1882 in The Cyprus Gazette, Supplement, 6 May 1882, V21/2. This was a modification of a municipal ordinance drawn up in 1881. See also The Cyprus Gazette, 26 June 1882 for the number of councillors allocated to the municipal council in the six main towns, V21/2, CSA. In 1895 the ratio of Christian to Muslim councillors was adjusted.
66 See District Reports in [C.4188], Cyprus: Report of Her Majesty’s High Commissioner for 1883 (London 1884) 65-91.
67 ‘Chief Medical Officer’s Report’, [C.3772], 35.
68 Report by W. R. Collyer on the municipality of Nicosia, The Cyprus Gazette (Extraordinary), 11 December 1884, V21/2, CSA.
69 Achilleas Liassides was an up-and-coming Nicosia politician. He was close to Archbishop Sofronios. In 1886 he was elected a member of the Legislative Council of which he became a leading light, going on to become, in 1897, the first Cypriot member of the Executive Council. See Coudounaris, Βιογραφικόν Λεξικόν, 305.
70 SA1: 181/93, CSA.
71 Report of Enquiry into Municipal Affairs, The Cyprus Gazette, 4 January 1895, 2620, V21/22, CSA.
72 Correspondence and minutes in SA1: 1458/95, CSA.
73 For further information regarding these elections, see Markides, D., ‘Nicosia under British rule’, in Michaelides, D. (ed.), Historic Nicosia (Nicosia 2012) 327–400 Google Scholar.
74 As late as 1958 a report written by the veteran colonial civil servant, John Surridge, on municipal affairs emphasized the successful and harmonious nature of communally mixed municipal administration from the early years of British rule. See ‘Cyprus: The Report of the Municipal Commission’, 1958, CO926/805, The National Archives, Kew.