Abraham Stanyan (c. 1669–1732) was a British diplomat and politician who sat in the

House of Commons The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the Bicameralism, bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of ...

from 1715 to 1717. He was ambassador to Austria and the Ottoman Empire. Stanyan was the eldest son of Lawrence Stanyan of Monken Hadley, Middlesex and his wife Dorothy Knapp, daughter of Henry Knapp of South Stoke, Oxfordshire. His father was a merchant, farmer and commissioner of the revenue. He was the elder brother of the historian and politician Temple Stanyan. After becoming a student in the

Middle Temple The Honourable Society of the Middle Temple, commonly known simply as Middle Temple, is one of the four Inns of Court entitled to Call to the bar, call their members to the English Bar as barristers, the others being the Inner Temple (with whi ...

, he served as secretary to Sir William Trumbull as Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, and later to the Earl of Manchester as Ambassador to the Venice in 1697–1698 and then in France in 1699–1700. He became a Clerk of the Privy Council, briefly between these appointments. After a period out of employment, he was appointed as envoy to Switzerland from 1705 to 1714, after which he published a book in English about the country, An Account of Switzerland. Following his Swiss adventure, he was appointed Ambassador to Austria from 1716 to 1717, then

Ambassador An ambassador is an official envoy, especially a high-ranking diplomat who represents a state and is usually accredited to another sovereign state or to an international organization as the resident representative of their own government or so ...

to the

Ottoman Empire The Ottoman Empire (), also called the Turkish Empire, was an empire, imperial realm that controlled much of Southeast Europe, West Asia, and North Africa from the 14th to early 20th centuries; it also controlled parts of southeastern Centr ...

in October 1717. He arrived at Adrianople on 24 April 1718. He held these last two posts in a period when England held the role of mediator between the

Habsburg The House of Habsburg (; ), also known as the House of Austria, was one of the most powerful dynasties in the history of Europe and Western civilization. They were best known for their inbreeding and for ruling vast realms throughout Europe d ...

s and the Ottomans, and having worked in the capitals of both powers Stanyan was an influential part of those negotiations. He was recalled on 16 May 1729 but did not leave Turkey until 18 July 1730. On his return to England from Switzerland in 1714, Stanyan was appointed a Commissioner of the Admiralty. At the 1715 general election, he was elected as Member of Parliament for

Buckingham Buckingham ( ) is a market town in north Buckinghamshire, England, close to the borders of Northamptonshire and Oxfordshire, which had a population of 12,890 at the United Kingdom Census 2011, 2011 Census. The town lies approximately west of ...

on the interest of his cousin, Lord Cobham. He gave up his seat in October 1717 on appointment to office as clerk in ordinary to Privy Council. He was a Whig and member of the

Kit Kat Club The Kit-Cat Club (sometimes Kit Kat Club) was an early 18th-century English club in London with strong political and literary associations. Members of the club were committed Whigs. They met at the Trumpet Tavern in London and at Water Oakley i ...

. Stanyan died in September 1732.

Works

* ''An Account of Switzerland'', London, printed for Jacob Tonson, 1714.

References

*The National Portrait Gallery *The English Embassy at Constantinople, 1660–1762, A.C. Wood, The English Historical Review, Vol. 40, No. 160 (Oct., 1925), pp. 533–561 *Philip Woodfine and Claire Gapper, 'Stanyan, Abraham (c.1669–1732)’, ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', (Oxford University Press, Sept 2004; online edn, Jan 2008

accessed 18 November 2008. 1660s births 1732 deaths Ambassadors of Great Britain to the Ottoman Empire English civil servants British MPs 1715–1722 Members of the Middle Temple Members of the Parliament of Great Britain for English constituencies Lords of the Admiralty Clerks of the Privy Council Ambassadors of Great Britain to the Holy Roman Emperor {{England-GreatBritain-MP-stub