In 1906, he built a house inside the Robert College campus for his wife and son. He left Galatasaray in 1894 and started teaching at another prestigious institution on the Bosphorus, Robert College, in 1896, where he kept working until his death.
In 1890 he married his cousin Nazime, and the couple had a son named Haluk in 1895. His sister suffered a tragic early death. He received his education at the prestigious Galatasaray Lisesi and graduated in 1888 as the valedictorian with the highest grades. His father (Hüseyin Efendi), originally from Çankırı in Anatolia, was mostly absent, as he was exiled for being a political foe of the ruling regime while his mother (Hatice Refia Hanım), a Greek Muslim convert from the Ottoman island of Sakız (Chios), died when he was very young. Mehmed Tevfik was born in Istanbul, Ottoman Empire, in 1867. Tevfik Fikret (Decem– August 19, 1915) was the pseudonym of Turkish poet Mehmed Tevfik.
