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TheAnglo-Russians were an Englishexpatriate business community centred inSt Petersburg, then alsoMoscow, from the 1730s until the 1920s. This community was established against the background ofPeter I's recruitment of foreign engineers for his new capital, and generally cooperativediplomatic relations between the Russian and British empires. Some of the families were resident in Russia for several generations, though generally retaining UK citizenship and sending their children to be educated in England. Some lived there for so long that their English acquired a distinctive accent peculiar to Anglo-Russians.[2][3][4]
Notable Anglo-Russian families were built around the trading houses and businesses of the Cazalet family; this includes the Cazalet-Miller business empire including the Ebsworth family, and Whishaw family.[5][6] One of the first Anglo-Russian families was established by Noah Cazalet (1757–1800), a silk weaver, settled in St Petersburg and expanded into the burgeoning business of rope manufacture for sailing ships.[7] In 1860, Edward Cazalet married an Elizabeth Marshall, and became connected to the company of William Miller & Co, of Leith in Scotland. The Whishaw family, of Hills and Whishaw Ltd, included James Whishaw, and influential intermediary in development of theBaku oilfields[8] andStella Zoe Whishaw, later Baroness Meyendorff, an Anglo-Russian actress who wrote a memoirThrough terror to freedom - the dramatic story of an Englishwoman's life and adventures in Russia before, during & after the revolution in 1929, and then became a film diva in the 1930s.[9]
Nothing is recorded of the children ofJoseph Billings (c.1758-1806) an English navigator who joined the Tsar's navy and settled in Russia. More notable are the descendants of William Sherwood, an English cotton machine engineer who came to Russia in 1800. (1798 at the invitation of Tsar Paul I according to family papers (Marcus Sherwood-Jenkins). His sons wereJohn Sherwood, (Ivan Shervud in Russian) an influential lieutenant toAlexander I and Joseph Sherwood, who died in 1832 when his sonVladimir Osipovich Sherwood, later a famous architect (who was responsible for the building of The State Historical Museum on Red Square, Moscow) was five years old. William's descendants include great-grandsonsVladimir Vladimirovich Sherwood, also an architect, andLeonid Sherwood, a sculptor, and great-great-grandson, the artistVladimir Favorsky.John Sherwood (Ivan Shervud) was responsible for unmasking the Decemberist plot in 1825 and was ennobled by the Tsar for his services and given the honorific Shervud Vernyi (Sherwood the loyal).[citation needed]
In addition, there were the expatriate-born children of British businessmen in Russia, such as conductorAlbert Coates, whose father was general manager for a British company in St Petersburg. He was raised from the age of 12 in England. Chess playing sistersVera Menchik andOlga Menchik were daughters of a Czech father and English mother in Moscow, who moved to Britain in 1921 when the sisters were 15 and 13 years old.[citation needed]
A fictional account of Anglo-Russians is found inPenelope Fitzgerald'sThe Beginning of Spring (London, 1988).[citation needed]
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