Alexander Raphael

Alexander Raphael (died 1850) was the first British-Armenian to serve in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom.^[1] He was returned as a Liberal MP from the Irish constituency of County Carlow, at a by-election in June 1835. However the election was challenged on petition and he was unseated on 19 August 1835. Raphael succeeded in entering the House of Commons as a Catholic Tory from St Albans in 1847 and retained the seat until his death. Prior to serving in Parliament, he had been Sheriff of London for 1829, where he lost the tip of his left index finger in a fight with a criminal.^[2] His father was Edward Raphael who was one of the founders of the Carniac Bank in Madras, India, which opened its doors in 1788.

References

^ Seth, Mesrovb Jacob (1937). Armenians in India: From the Earliest Times to the Present. Calcutta. p. 595. http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=BlreO8bmK30C&lpg=PA595&ots=3hH9XEB9xq&dq=Alexander%20Raphael%2C%20first%20%20Armenian&pg=PA595#v=onepage&q=&f=false.
^ David Marshall Lang.Armenia: Cradle of Civilization. George Allen and Unwin Publishers. British ISBN 0-04-956008-5

Parliamentary Election Results in Ireland, 1801-1922, edited by B.M. Walker (Royal Irish Academy 1978)
Leigh Rayment's Historical List of MPs
James Corbett, A History of St Albans states that Alexander Raphael was a Liberal, as does F.W.S. Craig in British Parliamentary Election Results 1832-1885.

External links

Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by Alexander Raphael

Parliament of the United Kingdom
Preceded by Benjamin Bond Cabbell George Repton	Member of Parliament for St Albans 1847 – 1850 With: George Repton	Succeeded by Jacob Bell George Repton

Persondata
Name	Raphael, Alexander
Alternative names
Short description	British politician
Date of birth
Place of birth
Date of death	1850
Place of death