Channelling Ottoman Armenian Refugees During the Hamidian Massacres: Immigration Restrictions and British Liberal Imperial Humanitarianism at Stake (1894–1898)

This article examines British refuge to Ottoman Armenians in the aftermath of the 1894–1897 Hamidian massacres, an episode absent from the historiography of Britain and refuge, and largely from historical refugee studies. Analysed against the backdrop of the restrictionist Aliens Bills (1894–1905), refuge offered by Britain to tens of thousands of Ottoman Armenians seems a contradiction in terms. This article seeks to go beyond this contradiction and reflects on why and how the British Conservative Prime Minister, originator of the 1894 Aliens Bill when still in the Opposition, actively helped channelling Ottoman Armenians outside of the Ottoman Empire. Rather than encouraging movement to Britain, Salisbury urged to propose a British tradition of welcome more in keeping with current sensibilities in terms of domestic immigration. In so doing, Salisbury first sought to revive a tradition of British refuge as imperial. As it largely failed, he explored alternative, liminal loci (Bulgaria) outside of the formal Empire where British humanitarians, with the official support of the Foreign Office, might provide aid to Ottoman Armenian refugees – in the margins of international law. This case study thus offers new ways of envisaging British refuge in the late nineteenth century.