I was inspired to work on the genealogy of Boris Johnson, which I had begun at an earlier date and which it seemed now apt to elaborate on. In patriarchal descent Boris is a Turkish Kemal and not really a Johnson as such. Looking further back, his male line had sprung from the union of a Turkish villager and a Circassian slave. It was their son, Ali Kemal, who married a Swiss English girl, Winifred Brun. Ali's end was met when he was lynched and hung by a rowdy Turkish mob, some element to this being revenge for his outspokenness against the crime of the Armenian massacres, such perpetrators having now aligned to the revolutionary Kemalists. Ali had accused the Ittihadist chieftains for being authors of the massacre and had relentlessly demanded their prosecution and punishment. He called the Armenian massacre 'a crime before which the world shudders'. He was marked for plenty more than his stance on what had happened to the Armenians, being also a liberal pro-Britisher, outspoken journalist against nationalism, and friend of the last sultan. For a while he had been the countries interior minister. All was changing for Turkey at this time, departing an Ottoman multi ethnic past, which was a home to so many Greeks, Jews and Armenians, to becoming a land simply of Turks and Islam. A newspaper article in the Sphere at that time writes; 'Arrests have been made by the Kemalists of moderate Turks. The Kemalists have their black lists. On one Saturday evening, six men, civilians, entered the Circle D'Orient, the Diplomatic club in Constantinople, and asked for Ali Kemal, a former Turkish minister of the interior, who was later editor of the Peyam Sabah, the Morning News, and a well known Turkish journalist, who has consistently denounced the policy of the Kemalists in his articles and in his speech. He was not in the club at the time, but the six men waited for him in an alcove outside. At last he drove up, paid off his driver, and was about to enter the building when the men approached him. Pluckily he withdrew his revolver, only to find that each of the six had already drawn their arms on him. He was taken off in a motor car at once, and put into a boat on the Bosphorous. He was taken to Ismidt, half lynched by a crowd of fanatics, then hanged'. Elsewhere it is reported in more detail that Ali was lynched by a mob with sticks, stones and knives and then hung from a tree. An epitaph put across his chest read 'Artin Kemal', Artin being an Armenian name and a deliberate mocking of his standing up for these people. It was Ali's son, Osman Wilfred Kemal, born in England and there raised by his English granny, his mother having succumbed to puerperal fever after his birth, who adopted his grandmother Brun's maiden name Johnson, more appropriate for life in England: from Osman Wilfred Kemal to Wilfred Johnson; he being the grandfather of Boris, alias Alexander Boris De Pfeffle Johnson. Rather than Boris Kemal. 1911 Census for Wimbledon showing Osman Wilfred Kemal as a little boy living with his big sister Selma and Granny Brun: 18 Bernard Gardens Wilfred Kemal, age 1 and a half, born Bournemouth (English) Selma Kemal, sister, age 5, born Cairo, Egypt (English) Margaret Brun Johnson, grandmother, age 54, married for 30 years and had 4 children, 3 of whom have died, born East Witton, Yorkshire Florence Tanner, child nurse, age 30, born Ockham, Surrey Amy Tunny, domestic servant, age 30, born Southwark The De Pfeffle part to Boris's name reveals aristocratic ancestry, and further beyond that even royal ancestry, Osman Wilfred Kemal-Johnson having married Irene Williams, granddaughter of Baron and Baroness De Pfeffle who had lived in Versailles at the Pavilion du Barry. Irene's mother, Marie Louise de Pfeffle, would often compete as a teenager in lawn tennis and ping pong and here is one of many old newspaper references to the latter: 1902 Pall Mall Gazette "Ping pong, which broke out recently in Paris now claims many victims. The first tournament has been held by the tennis club and resulted in the lady championships falling to Mlles Yvonne and Marie Louise du Pfeffel. The ladies paper, Femina, which publishes their portraits, also gives an enthusiastic account fo the game for the benefit of those people who do not play it." Marie Louise married her English amour Stanley Fred Williams in Versailles: 1906 The Queen, The Ladies Newspaper "Fashionable Marriages" "A pretty wedding which took place at Versailles on January 21st (1906) was that of Mr Stanley Fred Williams, eldest son of Mr frederick G Williams, of Upper Norwood, to Mlle Marie Louise, daughter of Baron and Baroness de Pfeffel, Pavilion du Barry, Versailles. The Rev J W Browne, English chaplain of St Marks church, Versailles, performed the ceremony. The bride looked very charming in her gown of white crepe de chine with Irish point lace and a wreath of orange blossom. The reception was held at the Pavillion du Barry, and later the bride and bridgrom left for Beaulieu for their honeymoon, after which they will return to make their home in Shortlands, Kent." It was Baron de Pfeffle's mother Carolina who had royal blood, she being the illegitimate daughter of an actress Frederika Port and Prince Paul Von Wurttemburg. Boris's ethnic variety continues in his children, by his wife Marina, who are part Indian, their mother being half Punjabi Sikh.
Boris and Marina are separated, though married still, and he has taken up with a woman younger than him, having moved her into his prime ministerial residence. Boris's ancestry, as I interestingly now have seen, despite first appearances, is most colourful and not all traditionally British.
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AuthorSusie Harrison and her hobby of genealogy, always looking into her own and her friends family trees. Categories
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