The Anglo-Russians were an English

expatriate An expatriate (often shortened to expat) is a person who resides outside their native country. The term often refers to a professional, skilled worker, or student from an affluent country. However, it may also refer to retirees, artists and ...

business community centred in

St Petersburg Saint Petersburg, formerly known as Petrograd and later Leningrad, is the List of cities and towns in Russia by population, second-largest city in Russia after Moscow. It is situated on the Neva, River Neva, at the head of the Gulf of Finland ...

, then also

Moscow Moscow is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Russia by population, largest city of Russia, standing on the Moskva (river), Moskva River in Central Russia. It has a population estimated at over 13 million residents with ...

, from the 1730s until the 1920s. This community was established against the background of Peter I's recruitment of foreign engineers for his new capital, and generally cooperative diplomatic relations between the Russian and British empires. Some of the families were resident in Russia for several generations, though generally retaining UK citizenship and sending their children to be educated in England. Some lived there for so long that their English acquired a distinctive accent peculiar to Anglo-Russians.

Russian people of English descent

Notable Anglo-Russian families were built around the trading houses and businesses of the Cazalet family; this includes the Cazalet-Miller business empire including the Ebsworth family, and Whishaw family. One of the first Anglo-Russian families was established by Noah Cazalet (1757–1800), a silk weaver, settled in St Petersburg and expanded into the burgeoning business of rope manufacture for sailing ships. In 1860, Edward Cazalet married an Elizabeth Marshall, and became connected to the company of William Miller & Co, of Leith in Scotland. The Whishaw family, of Hills and Whishaw Ltd, included James Whishaw, and influential intermediary in development of the Baku oilfields and Stella Zoe Whishaw, later Baroness Meyendorff, an Anglo-Russian actress who wrote a memoir ''Through terror to freedom - the dramatic story of an Englishwoman's life and adventures in Russia before, during & after the revolution'' in 1929, and then became a film diva in the 1930s.Stella Arbenina photo
/ref> Vladimir Sherwood Self-portrait

Nothing is recorded of the children of

Joseph Billings Joseph Billings (17581806) was an English navigator, hydrographer and explorer who spent the most of his career in Russian service. From 1790 to 1794 he commanded a marine expedition that searched for a Northeast Passage and explored the coasts ...

(c.1758-1806) an English navigator who joined the Tsar's navy and settled in Russia. More notable are the descendants of William Sherwood, an English cotton machine engineer who came to Russia in 1800. (1798 at the invitation of Tsar Paul I according to family papers (Marcus Sherwood-Jenkins). His sons were John Sherwood, (Ivan Shervud in Russian) an influential lieutenant to

Alexander I Alexander I may refer to: * Alexander I of Macedon, king of Macedon from 495 to 454 BC * Alexander I of Epirus (370–331 BC), king of Epirus * Alexander I Theopator Euergetes, surnamed Balas, ruler of the Seleucid Empire 150-145 BC * Pope Alex ...

and Joseph Sherwood, who died in 1832 when his son Vladimir Osipovich Sherwood, later a famous architect (who was responsible for the building of The State Historical Museum on Red Square, Moscow) was five years old. William's descendants include great-grandsons

Vladimir Vladimirovich Sherwood Vladimir Vladimirovich Sherwood or Shervud (; May 17, 1867 — June 18, 1930) was a Russian architect who worked in Moscow in 1895–1914 in Art Nouveau style and ''modernized classics'' variant of Russian neoclassical revival that predated modern ...

, also an architect, and Leonid Sherwood, a sculptor, and great-great-grandson, the artist

Vladimir Favorsky Vladimir Andreyevich Favorsky (; March 14, 1886 – December 29, 1964) was a Soviet graphic artist, woodcut illustrator, painter, art critic, muralist, and teacher. He was a People's Artist of the USSR from 1963 and a full member of Soviet Ac ...

. John Sherwood (Ivan Shervud) was responsible for unmasking the Decemberist plot in 1825 and was ennobled by the Tsar for his services and given the honorific Shervud Vernyi (Sherwood the loyal). In addition, there were the expatriate-born children of British businessmen in Russia, such as conductor Albert Coates, whose father was general manager for a British company in St Petersburg. He was raised from the age of 12 in England. Chess playing sisters

Vera Menchik Vera Francevna Mencikova (, ''Vera Frantsevna Menchik''; ; 16 February 1906 – 26 June 1944), was a Russian-born Czechoslovak chess player who primarily resided in England. She was the first and longest-reigning Women's World Chess Champ ...

and

Olga Menchik Olga Menchik (Menčíková, Menčik) Rubery (2 May 1907, Moscow – 26 June 1944, Clapham, London) was a Czech-British female chess master. Born in Moscow to a Czech father and a British mother, she was younger sister to Vera Menchik, the Women ...

were daughters of a Czech father and English mother in Moscow, who moved to Britain in 1921 when the sisters were 15 and 13 years old. A fictional account of Anglo-Russians is found in

Penelope Fitzgerald Penelope Mary Fitzgerald (17 December 1916 – 28 April 2000) was a Booker Prize-winning novelist, poet, essayist and biographer from Lincoln, England. In 2008 ''The Times'' listed her among "the 50 greatest British writers since 1945". ''The Ob ...

's ''The Beginning of Spring'' (London, 1988).

References

{{Ancestry in Russia Russia–United Kingdom relations * History of Saint Petersburg Society of the Russian Empire

Russian people of English descent

See also

References