Robert FREW globetrotting priest

[brigidmac]

My brother in law  found the grave of the vicar of the English church in Gothenburg SWEDEN
& Became interested in his story ..

Robert Brew  definitely died 19 Feb 1941
Believed to be 73
So born 1868

Doctor of divinity + OBE

He's on records as being of Scottish descent ..I don't which newspapers this was from .

He arrived in Gothenburg 1931

He lived in constantinople,  Turkey before then

Apparently Turkish historians have given him the reputation of being a spy + he his not getting credit for his humanitarian works

I found that there is a record of a will ;thru a solicitor in Llandudno Wales  to an Albert Adair WHITELEY

We will send of for that .

Grateful for any help with any other information about him






.

[brigidmac]

I've found Robert FREW age 33 clergyman travelling from New York USA to London 25th may 1900

Described as Scotch

[brigidmac]

What could be the connection to
 Albert adair WHITELEY to whom he willed
£316 10s 2d

Could he be a nephew or a colleague
Albert was b 1899 d 1988
In 1939  he was a single public relations advisor for the council of empire settlers  in Cromwell road Finsbury

There's an interesting story about  a painting donated to Christchurch New Zealand in memory of his first wife Kathleen MAY ( GEE)

https://christchurchartgallery.org.nz/blog/collection/2014/08/still-life-with-flowers-in-a-basket-by-pieter-hard

[AlanBoyd]

found in: The Balkan wars: being a series of lectures delivered at the Army Service Schools, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas by Ford, Clyde S. (Clyde Sinclair), 1867

[referring to 1912/1913]

Our service was continued six months, and we treated at Tash Kishla Hospital 500 patients with three deaths and no complete amputations. For the second two weeks of this period, in company with Mr. Hoffman Philip and the Rev. Robert Frew, a Scotch Presbyterian minister of Constantinople, I also had personal charge of our specially organized Red Cross party which assumed the professional management, subsistence and financial support of the cholera camp at San Stephano, in the suburbs of Constantinople, where we had corraled in a compound, with the aid of an efficient guard, 600 Turkish soldiers, among whom there were 400 cholera cases with 200 deaths.

[AlanBoyd]

I found this at archive .org, a book in Turkish. I have used Google Translate to make the quotation.

from Refik Halid Karay [did not translate, a name? book is a biography?] by Minelbab İlelmihrab

EXPLANATIONS AND SHORT BIOGRAPHIES
3. Sait Molla [a journalist]
After his religious education, he made many kadiqs. He served as the head of the Surayi State (Danistay) and the undersecretary of justice during the armistice. With the British spy, the Reverend Robert Frew, he founded the British Society of Rebels. It is claimed that he is a British agent. He encouraged the opposition to the Anatolian struggle by organizing uprisings in various places. He tried to undermine the Anatolian movements by writing articles against the Anatolian movements in the newspaper "Istanbul", which he owned. When Istanbul was taken back, he fled to Romania and continued his harmful activities there.

Sait Molla, who is one of the specialties, has been in misery in Romania after he got into many dirty jobs.

[CaroleW]

How does this particular Robert Frew connect to your FH?  There are several Robert Frew births on SP around 1866-1869 - which one is yours?

[AlanBoyd]

The Memoirs of Rt. Honorable Syed Ameer Ali
published in "Islamic Culture – English Islamic Magazine" 1932

A soup kitchen was started in Constantinople under the direction of the Rev. Robert Frew who had with such devotion and self-sacrifice assisted Dr. Godwin Baynes in tending the cholera patients at San Stefano. It was first proposed to give 2,000 portions of soup daily, but the numbers presenting themselves and begging for food were so great that the work had to be extended and eventually 7,000 people were fed every day. No small proportion of them came from miles away bowl in hand to fetch the daily dole. The distribution began at one o'clock, and often lasted four hours, the representatives of about 1,500 Turkish families passing through the tent every day. The cost of running the kitchen for feeding these people was estimated at £600 per month, and the relief lasted up to June 22nd, 1913.

Mr. Frew was assisted in his work of ministering to the starving thousands by Sister Warriner, one of the nurses of the British Red Crescent Hospital staff, who had been sent out when cholera was raging among the Turkish soldiers. She attended to mothers and babies.

The British Red Crescent Societv's representatives were thus able to save the lives of thousands of these babies and small children. In addition to this relief work, Sister Warriner found many cases of smallpox, measles, and other illnesses needing care. Patients too ill to be nursed in the mosques were then taken by ambulance to the refugee Hospital, where they had every care. In addition to the refugees housed in the mosques some were living in houses, stables, and rough shelters, These were more difficult to find and to deal with, but, as far as possible, they were visited from time to time. After the recapture of Adrianople by the Ottoman Army, the Rev. Mr. Frew undertook the stupendous work of relieving the destitute Moslem peasantry of Thrace. Their houses were burnt down, their fields were unsown, their cattle were killed or sold for food. The land was in absolute desolation from one end to another. These were the people whom Mr. Frew undertook to help with the British Red Crescent funds, and nobly he did this work.

In the meantime his place in the administration of the soup kitchen was taken by another volunteer, Mr. Stephen Hobhouse, to whom also the Society owes a deep debt of gratitude.

[AlanBoyd]

The Sphere, Dec 7th 1912

THREE GOOD SAMARITANS OF THE WAR- PHOTOGRAPHED BY OUR CORRESPONDENT IN CONSTANTINOPLE
Our correspondent writes: "My portrait group shows Major C. S. Ford (wearing Red Crescent fez), Madame Schneider, and the Rev. Robert Frew. Ford is an American army surgeon who was on sick leave but volunteered on discovering the disorganisation and need for medical work in the Turkish Army. Frew is a Scotch clergyman located in Constantinople. Madame Schneider is an old Hungarian lady. With Hoffmann Philip, first secretary of the American Legation, and the Hon. Maurice Baring, well-known writer of books on Russian life, Major Ford and Mr. Frew plunged into the work of rescuing the living who were cordoned at San Stefano and left to die. only a few of them receiving even bread and water. Mention must be made of Miss Alt, an elderly Swiss lady, a companion of Miss Schneider. These two ladies were the pioneers of the remarkable undertaking. Living at San Stefano they first saw the horrors of this camp and without appealing for aid or protection entered upon the work with their own hands and their own money"

[AlanBoyd]

An OBE citation from The Edinburgh Gazette June, 1928, is it him?

The Reverend Robert Frew, Chaplain at The Hague.