The origins of the cemetery date back to 1853, when the Ottoman government declared that the graveyard of the Franks at Pera was no longer suitable as a burial ground.

A new site was granted near the Imperial War Academy (Ottoman Turkish: Mekteb-i Harbiye-i Şâhâne) in Pangaltı as a cemetery for Istanbul's Protestant and Catholic communities.

Four years later, the allotted space was deemed insufficient for the dead of both communities, and a second grant was issued by order of Sultan Abdülmecid I in 1857.

[1] Between 1840 and 1910, the area of Istanbul stretching northward from Taksim to Şişli was transformed from open countryside to densely inhabited residential settlement.

Due to this reason, the human remains were exhumed from the old Frankish burial ground in the Grand Champs des Morts and they were transferred, along with their grave markers, to its current location in 1863–1864 in Feriköy for re-interment.