Albert Houtum Schindler: A Remarkable Polymath in Late-Qajar Iran

D.T. Potts

• Publisher: Mage Publishers Inc.
• Year: 2023
• Print ISBN: 9781940445589
• eBook ISBN: 9781949445688
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Middle Eastern History
• Index: History

Widely regarded in his lifetime as the greatest living authority on all things Iranian, across an enormous range of disciplines, Albert Houtum Schindler lived and worked in Iran from 1868 to 1911. All who either met or corresponded with him came away praising his encyclopaedic knowledge and remarkable insight. A member of numerous learned societies in Europe, he sustained a wide web of intellectual contacts and was insatiably curious. As an employee of the Indo-European Telegraph Department, the Imperial Bank of Persia and the Persian Bank Mining Rights Corporation, he experienced firsthand the ups and downs of Iran's slow but inexorable movement towards modernity. Yet when he died in 1916 his obituaries were frustratingly brief. Private when it came to the details of his personal life, Albert Houtum Schindler gave little away. This book is the first full-scale examination of the life and legacy of an extraordinary witness to the late-Qajar period and the land, people and history of Iran.

Table of contents

• Preface & Acknowledgments
• chapter 1
• chapter 2
• chapter 3
• chapter 4
• chapter 5
• Chapter 6
• chapter 7
• chapter 8
• chapter 9
• chapter 10
• Appendix 1
• Appendix 2
• Appendix 3
• Fig. 1.1. All Souls Church, Langham Place, Marylebone, where Schindler’s parents were married.
• Fig. 1.2. Paul Chaix
• Fig. 1.3. Naser al-Din Shah, with an attendant, 1873.
• Fig. 1.4. Top, Madame Tussaud’s Exhibition.
• Fig. 1.5. Above, ‘Going to the pantomime,’ by J. Leech.
• 2.1. Frederic John Goldsmid, 1874.
• 2.2. John Underwood Bateman-Champain
• 2.3. Robert Murdoch Smith
• 2.4. Two views of ‘Kothal Dokhtar: Between Shiraz and the sea,’ showing telegraph line.
• Fig. 2.5. Conrad Gustaf Ferdinand Fagergren. The Swedish physician Dr Conrad Gustav Fagergren (left) and the American missionary Joseph Gallup Cochran (right), pictured during their visit to Tehran in late 1847.
• Fig. 2.6. English translation of Schindler’s marriage certificate.
• Fig. 2.7. Top, St. Mary’s Church, Shiraz.
• Fig. 2.8. Above, A Group of Engineer Officers at Kandahar, c. 1880 during the 2nd Afghan War. Left to right: Lt. F.B.G. D’Aguilar; Lt. F.B. Longe; Lt. E.A. Walker; Capt. W.H. Haydon; Maj. E.N. Peters; Capt. W.W. B Whiteford; Lt-Col. J. Hills; Lt. M.J. Sla
• Fig. 2.9. Baron Julius de Reuter
• Fig. 2.10. Emil Tietze, 30 January 1883.
• Fig. 2.11. Sir Joseph Prestwich
• Fig. 2.12. Ieronim Ivanovich Stebnitzky
• 2.13. S.G. Burrard
• Fig. 2.14. Courtyard and clocktower of the Dar al-Fonun.
• Fig. 2.15. Mirza Zayn-al-‘Abedin
• Fig. 2.16. Naser al-Din Shah’s palace.
• Fig. 2.17. Soltan Morad Mirza Hosam al-Saltana
• Fig. 3.1. Sven Hedin
• Fig. 3.2. ‘Ali Qoli Khan Mokhber al-Dowleh
• Fig. 3.3. Amir Hamzah. Page from the Mughal Hamzanama, c. 1562–1577.
• Fig. 3.4. South Kensington Museum: The interior of the North Court, with exhibits and visitors. W.E. Hodgkin, 3 May 1862.
• Fig. 3.5. Turquoise being washed at the Ma‘den mines.
• Fig. 3.6. Joseph Désiré Tholozan
• Fig. 3.7. George Sutherland Mackenzie
• Fig. 3.8. Heinrich Kiepert
• Fig. 3.9. Above, The Friday Mosque of Shushtar.
• Fig. 3.10. Opposite, Bridge at Shushtar.
• 3.11. The Armenian settlement Julfa.
• Fig. 3.12. Bridge over the Dez river at Dezful.
• Fig. 3.13. Telegram in cipher received by A.V.W. Jackson during his visit to Iran in 1903.
• Fig. 3.14. Albertus Hermanus Paulus Hotz and his wife Lucy Helen Woods.
• Fig. 3.15. Adolf Bastian
• 3.16. Rudolf Virchow
• Fig. 3.17. Gonbad-e Baz
• Fig. 3.18. C.E. Stewart
• Fig. 3.19. Telegraph poles and lines near Isfahan.
• Fig. 3.20. Baron Louis Auguste Jean de Norman et d’Audenhove
• Fig. 3.21. Edmond O’Donovan
• Fig. 3.22. The Cossack guard of Mohammad ‘Ali Shah in 1908 before his palace in Tehran.
• Fig. 4.1. Mirza ‘Ali Asghar Khan Amin al-Soltan
• Fig. 4.2. Hassan Khan Moqaddam Maraga’i E’temad al-Saltana
• Fig. 4.3. View of Mashhad from the roof of a hamam, sometime in the 1840s to 1860s.
• Fig. 4.4. S.G.W. Benjamin
• Fig. 4.5. The former Razumovsky Palace, headquarters of the Königlich Kaiserlich Geologischen Reichsanstalt from 1852 onward.
• Fig. 4.6. The Edinburgh Museum of Science and Art
• Fig. 5.1. Top, Bremen-Göpelingen, view of the Actien-Gesellschaft Weser shipyard. Fig. 5.2. Above, the Persepolis.
• 5.3. Oskar Mann
• Fig. 5.4. T.H. Holdich
• Fig. 5.5. The Ethnographic Museum (Rijks Ethnographisch Museum) in Leiden c. 1900.
• Fig. 5.6. View of Bushehr, probably taken from the governor’s house, 1870.
• Fig. 5.7. Shaykh Miz’al Khan
• Fig. 5.8. Apollo Bunder, Bombay harbor, c. 1880.
• Fig. 5.9. The Victoria Theater in Grant Road, Bombay, built in 1846.
• Fig. 5.10. The USS Brooklyn
• Fig. 5.11. Sir Thomas Edward Gordon
• Fig. 5.12. The lion of Hamadan
• Fig. 5.13. Edward Granville Browne
• Fig. 6.1. Sir Henry Drummond Wolff
• Fig. 6.2. British Legation in Tehran.
• Fig. 6.3. Garrick Mallery
• Fig. 6.4. Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury, July, 1888.
• 6.5. Árminius Vámbéry
• Fig. 6.6. ‘In the garden of the Russian consulate at Meshed.’
• Fig. 6.7. Baron de Staal
• Fig. 6.8. Prince Nikolai Sergeevich Dolgorukov
• Fig. 6.9. Nicholas de Giers
• Fig. 6.10. Lucien Wolf
• Fig. 6.11. Baron George de Reuter
• Fig. 6.12. ‘Banque Impériale, Teheran’
• Fig. 6.13. The staff of the Imperial Bank of Persia. Schindler is seated in the front row, second from left. Joseph Rabino is seated in the front row, second from right.
• Table 6.1. Schindler’s table of chapparing and caravan rates of travel.
• Fig. 6.14. Fabius Boital (far left)
• Fig. 6.15. Page from a letter sent by Schindler to Lewis Hamilton on May 26th, 1890.
• Fig. 6.16. Right, Hans Winklehner
• Fig. 6.17. Above, Hans Winklehner with some of his staff.
• Fig. 6.18. Hans Winklehner with a mounted prospection party.
• Fig. 6.19. Alexander Friedrich Wilhelm von Stahl
• Fig. 6.20. Soltan Masud Mirza Zell al-Soltan
• Fig. 6.21. Sir Lepel Henry Griffin
• Fig. 6.22. Plan of Alexander Macqueen’s proposed road from Ahwaz to Tehran, ‘Persian Road and Transport Coy, Plan to accompany General Report, March 1891.’
• Fig. 6.23. A note from Hamilton to Schindler, 21 February 1891.
• Fig. 6.24. Friedrich Rosen
• Fig. 6.25. Alexander Dmitrievich Zinoviev
• Fig. 6.26. Dowlat Gate, Tehran, 1895.
• Fig. 7.1. Lord George Nathaniel Curzon, Marquess Curzon of Kedleston.
• Fig. 7.2. Cyrus the Great’s tomb at Pasargadae.
• Fig. 7.3. Fath ‘Ali Shah’s relief at Rayy, 1925.
• Fig. 7.4. ‘The Teheran Tobacco Riots – The Mob in Front of the Shah’s Palace.’
• Fig. 7.5. Lawrence John Lumley Dundas, Earl of Ronaldshay (1892-1929) and 2nd Marquess of Zetland (1930-1961).
• Fig. 7.6. Sir Henry Mortimer Durand
• Fig. 7.7. Xavier Galezowski
• Fig. 7.8. Lazar Solomonovich Polyakov
• Fig. 8.1. St. George’s Hanover Square, c. 1889
• Fig. 8.2. Caspar Purdon Clarke
• Fig. 8.3. Pocket sun-dial, Isfahan, 1678-1720?
• Fig. 8.4. ‘Her Excellency Lady Curzon leaving the Viceregal Lodge for a drive, Simla, India.’
• Fig. 8.5. Stewart Culin
• Fig. 8.6. Naser al-Din Shah lying in state.
• Fig. 8.7. Adrien Achille Proust
• Fig. 9.1. Mozaffar al-Din Shah
• Fig. 9.2. King Oscar Fredrik II of Sweden and Norway
• Fig. 9.3. Henry James Whigham
• Fig. 9.4. William Knox D’Arcy
• Fig. 9.5. Antoine Kitabgi Khan
• Fig 9.6. George Bernard Reynolds, left, near Masjid-e Soleyman, 1908.
• Fig. 9.7. Mohammad ‘Ali Shah
• Fig. 9.8. Morgan Shuster
• Fig. 9.9. Oliver Codrington
• Fig. 9.10. Top, Schindler’s grave.
• Fig. 9.11. Above, detail of the inscription on the middle step of the plinth above Schindler’s grave.