CONTRIBUȚIA COMUNITĂȚII BRITANICE LA DEZVOLTAREA CONSTANȚEI MODERNE ÎN A DOUA JUMĂTATE A SECOLULUI AL XIXLEA. FRAȚII GEORGE ȘI HENRY/HARRY GUARRACINO
THE CONTRIBUTION OF THE BRITISH COMMUNITY TO THE DEVELOPMENT OF MODERN CONSTANTA IN THE SECOND HALF OF THE XIXth CENTURY. BROTHERS GEORGE AND HENRY/HARRY GUARRACINO

Summary/Abstract: In the second half of the 19th century, in the period 1857-1882,in Kustendjie (today's Constanta) there was a British community of several hundred people, made up of employees of the Danube Black Sea Railway Ltd.(DBSR) and from their family members. This UK consortium had received two concessions in Dobrogea from the Ottoman Empire: the construction of the Tchernavoda – Kustendjie railway and the exploitation of the small port of Kustendjie. Engineers, merchants, officials, employees and railway superintendents, sailors or simple craftsmen, these British contributed through their actions to the modernization and development of the settlement of Kustendjie, which from a small village of Muslim shepherds turned into a small town in a short time prosperous of almost 6000 inhabitants. A particular contribution was that of the brothers George and Henry/Harry Guarracino,British citizens of Neapolitan origin. In this article we present unique information related to the contribution of the two, the first - George, a DBSR shareholder and a person involved in the inauguration of the Dobrogea railway, and the second, Henry, the British vice-consul in Kustendjie and a successful entrepreneur. Henry Guarracino's name is also associated with the construction of the city's first Cazin in Ovidiu's city, called Kursaal, Cure Room and which operated in the period 1880-1892, when Dobrogea had already come under Romanian administration. The same Henry Guarracinowas present at the first visit, in the fall of 1879, of Prince Carol of Romania,and he was also the one who built Hotel Carol, the current Navy Command,the first large hotel in Romanian Constanta.

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