[1] In 1755, Jesuit missionary Joseph Tiefenthaler reported that Sultan Ahmad Shah Bahadur took several Armenian gunners from Lahore to Kabul.

[3] A number of early British explorers and travellers stayed with the Kabul Armenians including George Forster (1793),[4] Edward Stirlng (1828)[5] and Charles Masson (1832).

[6] When the missionary Joseph Wolff[7] arrived in Kabul shortly after Masson, he preached in the Armenian church and by his account the community numbered about 23 people.

[9] Early travellers noted that the Armenians made wine, some were members of the Amir's personal body guard, the ghulam khana, others were traders and some owned land between the Bala Hisar and But Khak.

A little door led from this court into their church, a small dark building, but on procuring lights, I found that it was carpeted, and kept clean, apparently with great care.

Our guides showed me a volume containing the gospels in Armenian, and another with the epistles, also a small English pocket Bible with clasps, edition, which I think was said to have been bought from an Hindoostanee.

Imam Shah, the first 'native' Anglican priest of All Saints Church, Peshawar, visited the Kabul community where he administered Holy Communion and baptised a number of individuals, including adults.

According to an unpublished letter in the hands of Dr Gray's descendants, Yahya was approached by British intelligence who wanted him to send confidential reports to India about the situation in Kabul, only for him to refuse as it was far too dangerous.

However, on his return to Kabul the paranoid Amir 'Abd al-Rahman Khan suspected him of spying and in December 1897 he and all his extended family were expelled to Peshawar.

According to Seth In 1896, Amir Abdur Rahman Khan, sent a letter to the Armenian community at Calcutta, India (now Kolkata), asking that they send ten or twelve families to Kabul to "relieve the loneliness" of their fellow Christians whose numbers had continued to dwindle.

Yahya, Lucas and all his family, including at least one babe-in-arms, arrived in Peshawar destitute and were eventually housed in the CMS Zenana Mission's hujra in Gor Khatri Bazaar.

[1] Since the refugees had been stripped of all their property and were destitute both Yahya and Lucas Joseph wrote appeals to various British officials seeking financial assistance with but with no success.