D’Arcy Concession

About the Author

The concession bears D'Arcy's name, but like any negotiated business agreement or treaty, this one had several authors. Foremost among them was William Knox D'Arcy (1849–1917), an English businessman who moved with his family to Australia in the mid-1860s. D'Arcy formed a mining partnership with other individuals and succeeded so well that he became a multimillionaire. In the late 1880s he moved back to England. He knew little about the petroleum business, although having been involved in mining he was not totally ignorant. When he was approached in 1900 by Sir Henry Drummond Wolff, mostly on the basis of D'Arcy's extensive wealth and the knowledge that he was looking for new investments, he was interested in the idea of purchasing an oil concession in Persia. D'Arcy's efforts would extend from the negotiation of the concession to the actual discovery of oil in 1908. In that period the difficulties in finding oil nearly bankrupted him. However, from 1909, when he retired, to his death eight years later he not only recouped his investment but, in fact, increased his fortune substantially.

After D'Arcy had drawn up the initial draft, he sent his representative to conduct negotiations. The man he selected for this delicate task was Alfred L. Marriott, a cousin of one of D'Arcy's closest advisers. Marriott's counterpart and contributor to the final draft was a native Georgian, Antoine Kitabgi, one of several Europeans in the Persian government. Kitagbi had been the one to first approach Wolff in the search for an investor; he had held several important positions in the Persian government, including director-general of customs. He was extremely well connected, a fact that assisted negotiations, and as a result of the concession would be named commissioner to ensure that Persian interests were being served.