Job title
Mektubi Kalemi Baskitabet Muavinligi
Group of job titles: Correspondence and registry
1 official held the job title Mektubi Kalemi Baskitabet Muavinligi. Its 20 annual entries run from 1866 to 1885 (AH 1283 to 1302). The median of the 20 recorded monthly salaries is 1,500 kuruş, against 550 kuruş for the whole collection in the same years. The entries name 1 place, Istanbul.
- Officials
- 1
- Years on recordAH 1283 to 1302, 20 years with an entry
- 1866 to 1885
- Median monthly salaryfrom 20 recorded salaries
- 1,500 kuruş
- Places with officials
- 1
Profile of the group: Correspondence and registry
No source read describes Mektubi Kalemi Baskitabet Muavinligi by itself, so this is the profile of its group of job titles.
Offices that drafted, copied, registered and kept official papers: correspondence offices (tahrirat), whose regulations of 1869 at the Foreign Ministry name a chief clerk, drafters, copyists and registrars (mukayyit),1 the offices of a corresponding secretary (mektubi), who handled incoming and outgoing correspondence,2 and records offices (evrak), such as the Records Office of the Sublime Porte, which by 1861 supervised the flow of papers between the Porte and the other offices in Istanbul and kept records so that papers could be found when needed.3
Hard skills
- official writing (kitabet), composition (inşa) and the kinds of script, learned in the offices until just before the Tanzimat4
- official and private letter writing (kitabet-i resmiyye ve hususiyye) and the method of official writing (usul-i kitabet), taught at the Mekteb-i Maarif-i Adliyye from 1839 and at the Darülmaarif from 18495
History
Until just before the Tanzimat, clerks were trained on the job in the offices (kalem), each of which served as a school, mostly for the children of officials and dignitaries. Children began to attend an office at twelve, sometimes at seven or eight, learned official writing there from the senior clerks, drew no salary at first, and after three to five years became supernumeraries (mülazım) on a small salary.4
Notes
- Findley, Carter V. (1980). Bureaucratic Reform in the Ottoman Empire: The Sublime Porte, 1789-1922. Princeton: Princeton University Press, p. 199.
- Findley (1980), p. 78.
- Findley (1980), pp. 171-172.
- Akyıldız, Ali (2019). Mekteb-i Maârif-i Adliyye. TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, supplement vol. 2 (revised third printing), 236-238, paragraph beginning ‘Osmanlı devlet bürokrasisi için’. Online copy (read 14 October 2026).
- İpşirli, Mehmet (2001). Kalemiye. TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, vol. 24, 248-249, paragraph beginning ‘Bu sınıfın yetişmesi’. Online copy (read 14 October 2026).
Each statement above ends with the number of its note, which gives the work and the page or paragraph it comes from.
Monthly salary each year
The same numbers as a table
| Year | Recorded salaries | Median | Mean | Lower quartile | Upper quartile | Median of the whole collection |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1866/67 | 1 | 1,500 | 1,500 | 1,500 | 1,500 | 600 |
| 1867/68 | 1 | 1,500 | 1,500 | 1,500 | 1,500 | 600 |
| 1868/69 | 1 | 1,500 | 1,500 | 1,500 | 1,500 | 600 |
| 1869/70 | 1 | 1,500 | 1,500 | 1,500 | 1,500 | 600 |
| 1870/71 | 1 | 1,500 | 1,500 | 1,500 | 1,500 | 600 |
| 1871/72 | 1 | 1,500 | 1,500 | 1,500 | 1,500 | 550 |
| 1872/73 | 1 | 1,500 | 1,500 | 1,500 | 1,500 | 550 |
| 1873/74 | 1 | 1,500 | 1,500 | 1,500 | 1,500 | 500 |
| 1874/75 | 1 | 1,500 | 1,500 | 1,500 | 1,500 | 535 |
| 1875/76 | 1 | 1,500 | 1,500 | 1,500 | 1,500 | 530 |
| 1876/77 | 1 | 1,500 | 1,500 | 1,500 | 1,500 | 575 |
| 1877/78 | 1 | 2,000 | 2,000 | 2,000 | 2,000 | 560 |
| 1878 | 1 | 2,000 | 2,000 | 2,000 | 2,000 | 600 |
| 1878/79 | 1 | 2,500 | 2,500 | 2,500 | 2,500 | 600 |
| 1879/80 | 1 | 1,600 | 1,600 | 1,600 | 1,600 | 500 |
| 1880/81 | 1 | 2,000 | 2,000 | 2,000 | 2,000 | 500 |
| 1881/82 | 1 | 2,000 | 2,000 | 2,000 | 2,000 | 500 |
| 1882/83 | 1 | 2,000 | 2,000 | 2,000 | 2,000 | 500 |
| 1883/84 | 1 | 2,000 | 2,000 | 2,000 | 2,000 | 500 |
| 1884/85 | 1 | 2,000 | 2,000 | 2,000 | 2,000 | 500 |
Salaries are nominal monthly amounts in kuruş, as assigned. The thick line is the median of each year and the thin line the mean. A year with fewer than 5 recorded salaries is drawn as an open mark and is not joined to the line.
Places
| Place | Province | Officials | Annual entries | Years |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Istanbul (Dersaadet) | Istanbul (Dersaadet) province | 1 | 20 | 1866 to 1885 |
Ottoman officials recorded
| Official | Years | Annual entries | Kuruş a month | Birthplace |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| İsmail Hakkı Efendi | 1866 to 1885 | 20 | 1,500 to 2,500 | Istanbul (Dersaadet) |
How to read these records: years and calendars, what first recorded means, gaps between annual entries, and salaries.
Subjects
- Mektubi Kalemi Baskitabet Muavinligi
- Ottoman job titles (Osmanlı memuriyet unvanları)
- Labour history (emek tarihi)
- Salaries of officials (memur maaşları)
- Ottoman history (Osmanlı tarihi)
- Ottoman bureaucracy (Osmanlı bürokrasisi)
- Ottoman officials (Osmanlı'da memurlar)
- Ottoman personnel registers (Sicill-i Ahvâl defterleri)
- Ottoman registers (Osmanlı defterleri)