Alexander Raphael

Alexander Raphael (1775–1850) was a British politician who was the first British-Armenian to serve in the House of Commons.^[1] He was returned as a Whig 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 re-entering the House of Commons as a Catholic Whig from St Albans in 1847 and retained the seat until his death.

Prior to serving in Parliament, he had been Sheriff of London for 1834, where he lost the tip of his left index finger in a fight with a criminal.^[2]

Raphael was born in Madras, India to father Edward Raphael, a founder of Carniac Bank who passed away in 1791, and mother Maria Stephana Manuel, who died in 1790. He was baptised as a Catholic. His father was reportedly descended from Armenians (surnamed either Gharamiants or Kharan) who moved to New Julfa, Iran in the mid-17th century and then Madras. Raphael was tutored by Father Nicholas Pusani.^[3]

His legacy is St Raphael's Church in Surbiton, London, which he financed and had built as a family chapel. Completed in 1848, only two years before his death, it was later opened to the public as a Roman Catholic church by his nephew, Edward.^[4]

• 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 Whig, as does F.W.S. Craig in British Parliamentary Election Results 1832-1885.

• Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by Alexander Raphael

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