John Alfred Gray; Yahya

Simon Gray

16 August 2019, 14:56

Dr John Alfred Gray (1858-1929) was a son of Dr Thomas Scott Gray of Islington. He was educated at City of London School and St Bartholomews Hospital. From 1883 to 1888 he was employed as Assistant Medical Officer at St Mary’s Infirmary (part of the Islington Workhouse). He was keen to move up to a principal medical officers post so he could afford to get married but several applications for posts at other hospitals were unsuccessful. He was therefore very interested when he was approached by Mr Salter Pyne to take up the very well paid but dangerous post as Surgeon to the Amir of Afghanistan. His adventures are described in his book, “My Residence at the Court of the Amir”. He came home on leave to get married in 1891, when the photograph was taken. After leaving the service of the Amir in 1893 he wrote his book, gave numerous lectures on his experiences and got his medical knowledge up to date. He then set up in general practice in Ealing where his cousin, Sir Montagu Nelson was the first mayor of the new borough. He had a son and a daughter.

Jonathan L. Lee

06 August 2019, 07:01

Some supplementary information about Yahya, Dr Gray's translator:

Yahya was educated in the Church Missionary School in Peshawar. He, his wife and two daughters were also baptised in Peshawar prior to their return to Afghanistan shortly after the British withdrawal from Kabul in 1880. Yahya's great aunt was married to Sardar Muhammad'Azim Khan, half brother of Amir Dost Muhammad Khan. She was the mother of Sardar Muhammad Ishaq Khan, who famously rebelled against his half-cousin Amir 'Abd al-Rahman Khan, in 1888. In December 1896 Yahya, and some 22 other members of his extended family, were expelled to India. They reached in Peshawar in January 1897, where the CMS missionaries took them in. Nothing is known of Yahya's subsequent fate, though he wrote a letter to Dr Gray pleading for financial help. What happened to Yahya subsequently, his date of death and where he died, is unknown.

This photograph of Yahya is the only known image of any of the Kabul Armenians of his generation.

Zaheen Q

31 May 2018, 15:10

He was the author of 'At the Court of the Amir: a narritive' published in 1895. The book was written at the request of his publishers and compiled from a series of correspondences to his fiance who later became his wife. The publishers enticed him to write the book with the following plea "Every fool describes in these bright days His wonderous journey to some Foreign court".

Jonathan Lee, PhD, FRAS

05 March 2018, 21:13

The anonymous individual standing behind Dr Gray is his interpreter, a Kabul Armenian named Yahya. He accompanied Dr Gray on his visit to London in 1891 and attended Gray's wedding. Yahya also signed the Church Register (in Pesian) as a witness to the marriage referring to himself as 'Yahya, tarjuman-i Amir' [Yahya, the Amir's translator'], the Amir being Amir 'Abd al-Rahman Khan. The NPG's photograph is reproduced in Gray's published work, 'At the Court of the Amir'

Catherine Schwartzstein

24 May 2016, 20:53

I found Gray's year of death (1929) in a journal published by the Royal College of Surgeons of England. Gray was the surgeon to the amir of Afghanistan, 'Abd al-Rahman Khan, in the late 1880s to early 1890s. His book about his Afghan experiences "At the Court of the Amir" was published in 1901.