David Urquhart (1805-1877)

David Urquhart (1 July 180516 May 1877) was a British diplomat, writer and politician, serving as a Member of Parliament for Stafford from 1847 to 1852. He also was an early promoter in the United Kingdom of the hammam (known to westerners as the "Turkish bath") which he came across in Morocco and Turkey .

Early life

Urquhart was born at Braelangwell, Cromarty, Scotland. He was the second son of Margaret Hunter and David Urquhart. His father died while he was a boy. Urquhart was educated, under the supervision of his widowed mother, in France, Switzerland, and Spain. Jeremy Bentham assisted with Urquhart's education.

He returned to Britain in 1821 and spent a gap year learning to farm and working at the Royal Arsenal, Woolwich. In 1822, he attended St John's College, Oxford. However, he left before completing college because of his poor health and, instead traveled to eastern Europe. He never completed his classics degree as his mother's finances failed.

Career

Greece and Turkey

In 1827, Urquhart joined the nationalist cause and fought in the Greek War of Independence. Seriously injured, he spent the next few years championing the Greek cause in letters to the British government, self-promotion that entailed his appointment in 1831 to Sir Stratford Canning's mission to Istanbul to settle the border between Greece and Turkey.

Urquhart's principal role was to nurture the support of Koca Mustafa Reşid Pasha, intimate advisor to the Sultan Mahmud II. He found himself increasingly attracted to Turkish civilisation and culture, becoming alarmed at the threat of Russian intervention in the region. Urquhart's campaigning, including the publication of ''Turkey and its Resources'', culminated in his appointment on a trade mission to the region in 1833. He struck such an intimate relationship with the government in Istanbul that he became outspoken in his calls for British intervention on behalf of the Sultan against Muhammad Ali of Egypt in opposition to the policy of Canning. He was recalled by Palmerston just as he published his anti-Moscow pamphlet ''England, France, Russia and Turkey'' which brought him into conflict with Richard Cobden.

In 1835, he was appointed secretary of embassy at Constantinople in the Ottoman Empire, but an unfortunate attempt to counteract Russian aggressive designs in Circassia, which threatened to lead to an international crisis, again led to his recall in 1837.

Urquhart's position was so aggressively anti–Russian and pro–Turkish that it created difficulties for British politics. In the 1830s, there was no anti-Russian coalition in Europe; it had yet to be created. Britain could suddenly find itself in a situation of military conflict with Russia and, moreover, alone. As a result, Urquhart was recalled from Turkey, and the conflict with Russia was settled by peace talks.

In 1835, before leaving for the East, he founded a periodical called the ''Portfolio'', and in the first issue printed a series of Russian state papers, which made a profound impression. Urquhart was also the self-proclaimed designer of the Circassian national flag (which was adopted as the flag of Adygea in 1992).

Urquhart later publicly accused Palmerston, the head of British foreign policy, of being bribed by Russia. This view was constantly promoted in the London magazines he published. Among the regular authors of his publications was Karl Marx, who fully supported Urquhart's views on Palmerston. Personally, Karl Marx himself, in correspondence with his friend Engels