G.W. LEITNER’S CERTIFICATE FOR NATURALIZATION

Leitner was Hungarian by birth and "an Austrian Subject". As an intelligent young student he learnt the major languages of the Islamic countries (e.g. Arabic, Turkish, Persian and later on Urdu) and completed the Islamic studies from the well-known madrassahs of Istanbul. After migration to England (September 1858), he first got admitted in King's College, London, where, later on, he became the Professor of Arabic studies. In 1862, he decided to surrender his Austro-Hungarian citizenship and tried to get the naturalization of England. For this purpose, he completed all the relevant procedural formalities and finally succeeded in becoming citizen of Great Britain afterwards. Luckily, all the hand-written documents relating to his case of naturalization are safely preserved in the library of the Public Record Office, London.1 Still unpublished, all the material, contained in this file is being revealed in this article.