Francis Farrant

Francis Farrant (* 1803 ; † 1868 ) was a British diplomat .

Life

Farrant was made a lieutenant in the EIC's Bombay Light Horse in 1823 . He came to Tabriz in 1833 under the command of Colonel William Passmore as a military advisor to Mohammed Shah . After Fath Ali Shah's death on October 23, 1834, Colonel William Passmore's military mission helped Mohammed Shah with a march to Tehran on the peacock throne . Francis Farrant was then inducted into the Order of the Sun and Lions . From 1834 to 1837 Francis Farrant directed the training of the Persian cavalry in Zanjan . From 1837 he became private secretary to Sir John McNeil .

In 1838, Mohammed Shah and Russian military advisers besieged Herat . From the perspective of British India , the city on the Silk Road occupied a key strategic position, which the Governor of British India George Eden, 1st Earl of Auckland , saw best secured by the installation of an independent regent under British protection. In 1838 Francis Farrant accompanied Sir John McNeil to Herat. The British mission was withdrawn to Erzurum under William Taylour Thomson , diplomatic relations were broken and the first Anglo-Afghan war developed.

From 1839 to 1843 Farrant was the military secretary of the British legation in Tehran.

1842 participated in an Ottoman-Persian border commission in Erzurum . From there he was sent to Baghdad and Karbala to report on a massacre of Persians by the Ottoman Army.

In 1844 he became secretary of the embassy in Tehran. From 1847 to 1849 he was charge d'affaires there. In 1852 he resigned from his post after a long-standing feud with his boss Justin Sheil . A contemporary in Persia described him as a funny guy, full of fun and anecdote, who never looked into a book. Farrant was promoted to colonel in 1855.

predecessor	Office	successor
Justin Sheil	British ambassador to Persia 1847–1849	Justin Sheil

Individual evidence

1. ^ Farrant in Encyclopædia Iranica