William Knox D'Arcy (October 11, 1849 - May 1, 1917) was one of the principal founders of the oil and petrochemical industry in Persia (Iran).
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He was born in Newton Abbot, England, the son of a solicitor. He attended Westminster School until 1866 when the family emigrated to Australia, settling in Rockhampton, Queensland. D'Arcy continued his studies and chose to follow law, later joining his father's business. He did well and began to speculate, initially in land.
He married Elena Birkbeck of Rockhampton at St. Patrick's Roman Catholic Church, Sydney on 23 October 1872.[1] Elena was born in Mexico in 1840, the only daughter of Damiana de Barre Valdez and Samual Birkbeck. Samual was a mining engineer from Illinois in the United States. He was descended from the English Birkbecks, a Quaker family with an interest in education.[2] Samual met his wife, Damiana de Barre Valdez, whilst working in Mexico, managing a silver mine.
In 1882 he became a partner, with Walter Russell Hall and Thomas Skarratt Hall, in a syndicate with Thomas, Frederick and Edwin Morgan when they opened a mine on Ironstone Mountain (later renamed Mount Morgan), 24 miles (39 km) south of Rockhampton. There was a significant deposit at Mt Morgan. In October 1886, the syndicate became the Mount Morgan Gold Mining Company, with D'Arcy a director and the largest shareholder. He held 125,000 shares in his own name and 233,000 in trust. At one stage the shares reached £17/1s/- each, making them worth more than £6 million (an amount equivalent to £496 million in present day terms[3]). The company also worked a rich gold mine at Matakanui, Central Otago, New Zealand, through its subsidiary the Mount Morgan Sluicing Company.
In 1889, with a substantial fortune, he and his family moved to England. He bought the Stanmore Hall mansion, Bylaugh Park and a house on Grosvenor Square. His wife Elena died in 1897 and in 1899 he married Nina Boucicault (Nina was a first cousin of her namesake, Nina Boucicault, the celebrated Irish stage and film actress), who helped him entertain on a lavish scale. He had acquired a strong interest in horse-racing while in Australia, and maintained a private box at Epsom racecourse.
In 1900 he agreed to fund a search for oil and minerals in Persia headed by Wolff, Kitabgi and Cotte. Negotiations with the Mozaffar al-Din Shah Qajar began in 1901 and with the offer of £20,000 for a sixty year concession to explore for oil was secured in May covering 480,000 square miles (1,200,000 km2). The concession stipulated that William D'Arcy would have the oil rights to the entire country except for five provinces in Northern Iran. In exchange the Iranian government was given 16% of the oil company's annual profits, an agreement that would haunt the Iranians up until the late 20th century. After the D'Arcy concession the British became much more concerned with the stability of Iran because of their reliance on the country's vast oil reserves.[4]
A drilling team under George B. Reynolds was sent to Persia and began to search. In 1903 a company was formed and D'Arcy had to spend over £500,000 to cover the costs. False hopes were raised in 1904 and D'Arcy was forced to find further financial support, with the Burmah Oil Company Ltd. agreeing to put up to £100,000 into the venture in return for much of the stock.
Drilling in southern Persia at Shardin continued until 1907 when the search was switched to Masjed Soleyman (Masjid-I-Sulaiman in Persian مسجد سلیمان) in a place named "Maidan-i-Naftun". Drilling began at one site in January 1908 and at another nearby in March. By April with no success the venture was close to collapse and D'Arcy almost bankrupt, but on May 16 there were encouraging signs and on May 26 at 1,180 feet (360 m) they struck oil.
In April 1909 D'Arcy was made a director of the newly founded Anglo-Persian Oil Company (APOC) which would later become British Petroleum. By 1911 APOC had run a pipeline from the find to a refinery at Abadan. In 1912 the Mount Morgan company was listed in London and D'Arcy was made chairman of that board.
The financial support given by Burmah Oil and the British Admiralty meant that D'Arcy could no longer put his name to the new company despite the best efforts of his wife, and ended up just a shareholder to the company.[5]
Later in life he lived in Stanmore Hall, Middlesex. He commissioned from William Morris and Edward Burne-Jones a suite of tapestries, 'The Quest of the Holy Grail' (now dispersed). He also owned paintings by Frank Dicksee and Frederick Goodall.
He died on May 1, 1917.
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