| Administrative History | Allocations: 1919-1940, 1989; see later annual reports for any subsequent allocations.
By the 19th century, Eastern Armenia had been conquered by the Russian Empire, while most of the western parts of the traditional Armenian homeland remained under Ottoman rule. During the First World War a large number of Armenians living in their ancestral lands in the Ottoman Empire were killed or expelled by Ottoman authorities. In August 1920, under the Treaty of Sevres (not ratified by the Turkish parliament), the new Armenian Republic was formed from former Turkish and Russian territories. By 1921 Russia and Turkey had largely reclaimed their former territories; the independent Armenia collapsed and there were further massacres. In the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne, the Western powers accepted the new state of affairs, and the new Turkey was recognised as ruling Armenia. Many Armenians fled abroad.
In 1915, following the Armenian massacres, the Lord Mayor's fund was set up in London to collect money for the relief of Armenian refugees. The honorary secretary of the Armenian Refugees (Lord Mayor's) Fund was Harold Buxton, brother-in-law of the co-founder of SCF, and the two Funds became closely related (eventually in 1937 the Armenian Fund was integrated into SCF). In June 1919, SCF made its first grant to Armenia - only the second country, after Austria, that money was given to. SCF made large donations to the Lord Mayor's Fund for the support of orphans in the Armenian republic around Erivan, and also a group of children who were moved from Cilicia to Cyprus to Constantinople, and then to Corfu. Work in Erivan included an orphanage and a child welfare centre. Also supported were a number of sponsored children ('adoptions'). Another organisation working in the area was the Friends of Armenia, which also received aid from SCF.
From 1925 small contributions were made to support a group of Armenian children settled in Marseilles. From 1926, the Armenian refugees in Erivan and Corfu began to grow up enough to leave the orphanages, and the rest were transferred to organisations under Armenian control. Aid continued for feeding centres in Greece and Syria. SCF cooperated with other organisations including the ILO and later the Nansen International Office for Refugees. SCF continued to work with the Armenians, mainly in settlements in Syria. This work continued until the Second World War, when it petered out. In 1938 SCF contributed towards the cost of the Armenian hospital in Lebanon. In 1989 SCF gave aid to what was then the USSR in response to the Armenian earthquake. In 1991, following the collapse of the Soviet Union, the republic of Armenia became an independent state. |