Articles From Our Experts

Wherever European navies sailed, they introduced their own designs of ships and adapted those they saw being used locally. This is the second article in a series of three by the author, providing context and explanation for nautical terminology in the India Office Records.

When the Residency ship Berenice was destroyed by fire on a trip to Muscat, the Resident in the Persian Gulf endured a ‘week of considerable anxiety’ over-seeing the rescue of 178 men, women, and children.

Ownership of a medal of the Order of the Lion and Sun becomes the subject of an unseemly quarrel, as related by the British Envoy in Tehran.

Against a backdrop of bold manoeuvres by different states in the nineteenth century, the British Agent at the Court of the Imam of Muscat wrote numerous letters focused on small matters of prestige.

When Pelly undertook making a trip to Riyadh in 1864–65, he wished to gain intelligence on the Nejd, but also to prove that an Englishman could travel through the territory unmolested.

Lewis Pelly, Political Resident in the Persian Gulf 1862–72, witnessed rapid expansion in the value of trade in the region as well as political upheaval and crisis caused by famine.

From its origins as a small London enterprise, the East India Company (EIC) emerged as a powerful commercial and political organisation, whose presence in the Gulf helped shape the region’s modern history.

Looking to strengthen Persia as a potential buffer for the defence of India, Britain provided military assistance to the Crown Prince of Persia in his struggle against Russian expansion into the Caucasus.

Faced with the rise of a new power on land and an increase in attacks at sea, the British response at the start of the nineteenth century would lead to a new era of political and military intervention.

When Captain Francis Erskine Loch arrived in the Gulf, he very quickly made an impact that would continue to have implications for British attitudes to the Gulf for over 200 years.

The remarkable travel journals of an Indian civil servant, who was an eyewitness to the military action at Ra’s al-Khaymah in 1819.

What was the purpose of Sir Lewis Pelly’s trip through Afghanistan in 1860?

With the city of Muscat in disarray and growing dissent on the coast, the absent Imam of Muscat had to rely on his close relative to take charge and defend his territories. The person to assume this mantle? Influential, commanding, and female.

The death of the Persian Ambassador in Bombay almost spelled disaster for relations between Persia and British India in July 1802.

The death of an African sailor who had been severely flogged for attempted desertion, exposes the brutal nature of early nineteenth-century maritime life, in which justice could be as capricious as a strong tailwind.

Prior to the construction of the Suez Canal, nineteenth-century British officials explored an alternative route between the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean.

There are many different types of vessels used from the Red Sea to India. All of them have developed over the years to suit the local conditions. This is the third article in a series of three by the author, providing context and explanation for nautical terminology in the India Office Records.

Britain’s historical presence in the Gulf was based on a claim to be fighting “piracy”. But what did British officials mean by this, and how was it interpreted by the region’s residents?

Musandam’s majestic sea cliffs, inlets, and strategic location have always attracted the attention of external powers. British support in enforcing the writ of the Sultan of Muscat on the Peninsula has been vitally important since the mid-nineteenth century.

During the nineteenth century, the Gulf was a hive of economic activity, with merchant ships carrying precious cargoes back and forth to India, making fortunes for traders. But it could also be hazardous for sailors.

The Private Papers of One of the Gulf’s Most Important Political Residents, 1862–72, provide a fascinating insight into British Policy in the period as well as providing a more personal insight into the life of a British official.

‘What can I buy from the current post holder?’ was the first consideration of a newly appointed British Agent in the Empire. Frequent moves meant that provisions, furniture and necessities for entertaining were bought and sold rather than transported with Agents from post to post.

George Barnes Brucks was the first Englishman to survey the Gulf’s coasts in the 1820s. But while Brucks’s charts were quickly replaced by more accurate maps, his writings offer fascinating historic insight into the region.

The vast trove of material held at the British Library that pertains to Britain’s Colonial exploits owe their present organisation in part to the early acknowledgement by officials in the EIC and India Office of the importance of record-keeping.

Verbal abuse and physical attacks from those amongst which he lived, and denigration from foreign visitors; all part of the job of being a British Native Agent in Sharjah.

Not only did the Asian subcontinent’s hot and humid climate present a significant threat to the health of British administrators, but it also presented new challenges to their business of recordkeeping.

A government department unique in its scope and power, the India Office had a profound impact on the history of the Gulf.

The interception by an East India Company vessel in June 1853, of a Bahrain trading vessel carrying slaves in the Gulf, reveals a story of politics and diplomacy, disease and death.

An East India Company diary from the early nineteenth century demonstrates some of the challenges encountered when cataloguing older India Office records.

Much Anglocentric writing on Gulf history credits the British with bringing peace to the region. But how accurate is that narrative? A close inspection of the India Office Records reveals another picture of the British presence in the Gulf.

In 1830, the long-term relationship between Prince Najaf Ali Khan Zand and the Government of Bombay was put to the test when the Prince was accused of murder.