My wife's ancestors - Maltass - Contents

Maltass of Smyrna, Turkey

Our Maltass family spelt their name "Maltass" consistently.
NOT Maltrass.

They were a European merchant family living for generations in the Ottoman Empire (Turkey).
They are (in the male line) from England.
They went out from England to the Ottoman Empire on commercial and diplomatic business in the 18th century.
They inter-married with other European families living in the Ottoman Empire. (The European families generally did not marry either the Greeks or the Turks.)
My wife has French ancestry through one of these marriages.

Some descendants of the English Maltass family still live in Turkey.
See Historical background.

Rev. Farmer Maltus

Our family is said to descend from a Rev. Maltass, of Ripon, Yorkshire.
[Maltass, 1892] thought Rev. Maltass might be the same as the following Rev. Farmer Maltus of Scotton, Lincolnshire.
We have no other candidate for Rev. Maltass. But the evidence for this one is weak.
Scotton, Lincolnshire, is not far from the border with Yorkshire, but it is some distance from Ripon.
There is no link of Rev. Farmer Maltus to Ripon, or to family in the Levant.

William Maltus,
of Scotton, Lincolnshire.
Listed as "pleb" at his son's matriculation into Oxford, meaning an ordinary person (though one with enough money to send a son to Oxford).
He had issue:
1. Rev. Farmer Maltus,
  or Farmery,
  bapt "Farmerie Maltus", 26 Dec 1705 at Scotton.
  He was educ Lincoln College, Oxford. Matric 1 Feb 1724 (new style year), age 18.
  Ordained 19 Dec 1731. Became Deacon at Barton, Lincolnshire (not far from Scotton), 20 Dec 1731. See record and record.
  He mar 1stly to unknown wife.
  Move to London:
  "Farmery Maltus" published Sermons in London, 1752. See entry on p.1211 of vol.2 (1908) of A critical dictionary of English literature and British and American authors.
  "Farmery Maltus" was ordained in the Parish Church of St James, Westminster, on 7 Mar 1762. See record. We know this is him (despite the odd concept of being ordained again) because this same person is of Bermondsey and Alumni Oxonienses says that is our man.
  "Farmery Maltus", LLB, became lecturer of St Mary Magdalen Bermondsey (central London), 10 Mar 1762. See record.
  His wife died.
  He mar 2ndly, 11 Sept 1776, London, to Ann Nettleton.
  See mar entry. He is "Rev. Farmery Maltus" of St Mary Magdalen Bermondsey, widower.
  Death, 1782:
  Listed as lecturer of Bermondsey at his death 1782.
  He died 26 Mar 1782, age 76 yrs.
  See notice in Gentleman's Magazine, April 1782, p.206.

Entry for Rev. Farmer Maltus on p.907 of Alumni Oxonienses, 1715-1886, vol.3.

Item on p.388 of The Gentleman's Magazine, Vol 12, Issue 7, July 1742.
"Mr. Maltus" has recently resigned as Lecturer of St James Garlickhythe, City of London, and is being replaced by another cleric.
[Payne, 1890, p.24] says this is probably Rev. Farmer Maltus, and that does seem likely.

Extract from [Maltass letter, 1892] speculating that Rev. Farmer Maltus is of our family.
Conclusion: No clear evidence.

Our family

We start with:

Rev. --- Maltass,
of Ripon, N Yorkshire (N of Leeds),
born c.1700.
He had issue:
1. Henry Maltass.
  He went in mid-18th century to Constantinople, Turkey, the capital of the Ottoman Empire.
  See historical background.
  Named as brother of William in William's will.
2. William Maltass,
  born Ripon, Yorkshire, maybe around 1735.
  He went in mid-18th century (before 1762) to Smyrna, important port in W Turkey.
  See historical background.
3. (4 daus) Maltass.

Ripon, Yorkshire, on map of 1686 to 1719.
See modern map.

Maltass and similar of Yorkshire

Malthus of Berkshire (the economist)

References

1844 letter from Benjamin Maltass to Elizabeth Montgomery.
Hyde Clarke, "The history of the British colony at Smyrna", Levant Herald, 1860.
Collections for a history of the family of Malthus, by John Orlebar Payne, London, 1890.
MALTASS file in [SOG] Document Collection.
Maltass family history, post-1901. In Rees family papers. From Graham Russel.
Gateways to the past - Houses and gardens of old Bornova, Evelyn Lyle Kalcas, privately printed, Bornova.
- 1st edn 1978.
- 2nd edn 1983.

Smyrna BMD records

Smyrna Anglican Chaplaincy register (1799-1840). Manuscripts Section of Lambeth Palace Library, London.
- Images online
Malta Family History (site gone, but archive exists)
- Index online of BMD Records of British Chapel, Smyrna, 1795 - 1832.
- Some extracts.

Papers to be consulted

Smyrna records at [LMA]
- Smyrna Anglican church registers were all burnt in 1797 in an attack on the Europeans at Smyrna.
- Later Smyrna church records are in [LMA].
- Partially transcribed LMA registers
- Ms 29744-2. Smyrna baptisms (1787-1806) and marriages (1763-1809) and births (1757-1797). And early burial registers for Buca and Bornova (from 1860 and 1863 respectively).
Smyrna records at [NA.UK]
- Smyrna and other Levantine consular and diplomatic records.
- Notes on the NA.UK records

Sources yet to be consulted

Feyyaz Erpi (1987), Residential Architecture in Buca (1834-1934), Metu Publication, Ankara, Turkey.
- Covers Buca houses. Referred to here.
- Also covers Buca graves and has photos. Referred to here.
Paradise Lost: The Merchant Princes And The Destruction Of Smyrna, 1922, A.J. Hobbins, Fontanus, Vol. 11 (2003), pp.96-128.
"Levantine Heritage in Izmir", MA thesis, Onur Inal, 2006.
- Copy at levantineheritage.com. Images missing.
Paradise Lost: Smyrna 1922 - The Destruction of Islam's City of Tolerance by Giles Milton, 2008.

Wikipedia links

Levantines (Europeans living in Turkey. Some still there today).
The Levantine mansions of Izmir
Addresses in Turkey
Most of the European families in Smyrna had winter/trading/town houses in the port/city of Smyrna, mostly near the quayside, and summer/family/country houses at places near Smyrna, in particular at Bornova (Bournabat).
The Levant Company
- The ambassadors at Constantinople
- Consuls at Smyrna
List of diplomats of the United Kingdom to the Ottoman Empire