George Franghia (b. 1856): a forgotten farsighted Ottoman engineer’s contribution to the development of the province of Jerusalem during the late Ottoman period

Abstract

This article traces the career of the Greek Orthodox Ottoman engineer George Franghia, who served for a decade and a half at the end of the nineteenth century as the engineer of the District of Jerusalem. Franghia, a brilliant and prolific engineer whose name has almost entirely disappeared from the annals of Late Ottoman Jerusalem, was responsible for numerous infrastructure projects, construction plans, and an ambitious vision for modernization which would have completely changed the nature of the city and District of Jerusalem had they been fully implemented. It presents his achievements, and the vicissitudes of his lengthy career, which eventually led him to serve the central Ottoman authorities in Istanbul including the Sultan himself, despite being involved in numerous other initiatives in Jerusalem, both private and public.