Abraham Stanyan

Who was Abraham Stanyan?

Abraham Stanyan was an English politician and diplomat.

After becoming a student in the Middle Temple, he served as secretary to Sir William Trumbull as Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, and later to the Earl of Manchester as Ambassador to the Venice in 1697–1698 and then in France in 1699–1700. He became a Clerk of the Privy Council, briefly between these appointments. After a period out of employment, he appointed as envoy to Switzerland from 1705–1714, Commissioner of the Admiralty, Ambassador to Austria from 1716 to 1717, and then Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire from 1718–1730. He held these last two posts in a period when England held the role of mediator between the Habsburgs and the Ottomans, and having worked in the capitals of both powers Stanyan was an influential part of those negotiations.

On his return to England from Switzerland, he became member of parliament for Buckingham. He was a member of the Kit Kat Club