Untold lives blog

Could the Phoenicians, the ancient Mediterranean people who gave us the modern Latin alphabet and founded Carthage, have originated in Bahrain? A pioneering 19th century British archaeologist and his wife thought it possible.

Theodore Bent was born in Yorkshire in 1852. His marriage to landowner’s daughter Mabel Hall-Dare saved him from an intended legal career. The Bents shared a love of travel, and Mabel became a lifelong contributor to Bent’s work and writing.  Visits to Italy in the late 1870s were followed by extensive tours of the Greek Islands and Asia Minor in the 1880s, where the Bents developed a deep interest in archaeology. Bent’s researches led him to produce books and articles for both the popular press and learned journals.

In 1889 Bent visited Bahrain. Sir Henry Rawlinson, who had deciphered the cuneiform script of ancient Babylon, had recently suggested that Bahrain was the site of ‘Dilmun’. Sumerian poets had written of Dilmun as an abode of the blessed, the refuge of Ziusudra, the Sumerian Noah.

An entry in the Persian Gulf Administration Report, 1888-89, recording the arrival of the Bents in the Gulf and the start of their excavations amongst the ancient tumuli at Bahrain: IOR/V/23/56, No 259, f.51r

Bent’s excavations among the island’s ancient burial mounds led him to draw frequent parallels between the objects he found there and known Phoenician artefacts. His conclusion was that there had been close links between Bahrain and the Phoenicians, and that the Phoenicians might even have originated there.

‘Theodore Bent receiving visitors at the mounds, Bahrein’, from Southern Arabia, to face page 24: YC.1995.b.7122, f.24a

Bahrain was indeed the epicentre of the Dilmun civilisation of eastern Arabia, a maritime trading culture that flourished from the third millennium BC, before being absorbed by the Babylonians in around 600 BC. However, despite the fact that a tradition of the Phoenicians originating in Bahrain (the Greek Tylos) is as old as the historian Herodotus, modern archaeology finds little evidence to support the theory.

An entry in the Persian Gulf Administration Report, 1889-90, recording the opinion of Mr and Mrs Bent that their researches had confirmed the statements of ancient writers that the Bahrain Islands were the original home of the Phoenicians: IOR/V/23/58, No 274, f.201r

More journeys to southern Arabia followed in the 1890s, when the Bents did much to expand European knowledge of the Hadhramawt (Mabel becoming the first European woman to visit the area). They also visited Socotra and the little-known country around Aden.

Bent’s last journey was in southern Arabia in 1897. Here he and his entire party were struck down by malaria, which in Bent’s case turned into pneumonia. Bent died at his home in London four days after his return to England. In a memorial tribute Sir Clements Markham, President of the Royal Geographical Society, mourned a ‘very accomplished man, both as an archaeologist and geographer, a charming companion and a true friend’.

Reference in Field Notes: Aden Protectorate (1917) to the death there in 1897 of Theodore Bent, after he and his wife had been ‘quite prostrated by malaria’: IOR/L/MIL/17/16/7, f.18r

Mabel Bent saw the account of their Arabian travels into print as Southern Arabia, which was published in 1900. Her book has been described as ‘a classic even of the great age of exploration’.

Martin Woodward
Project Officer, Gulf History Project
Archival Specialist British Library/Qatar Foundation Partnership

Further reading:
Southern Arabia, by Theodore Bent, F.R.G.S., F.S.A., Author of The Ruined Cities of Mashonaland, The Sacred City of the Ethiopians, The Cyclades, Or Life Among the Insular Greeks etc. and Mrs Theodore Bent.. YC.1995.b.7122
 ‘37 File 483 Memorandum on Bahrain; Major E L Durand’s Notes on the Antiquities of Bahrain’. IOR/R/15/1/192
Elizabeth Baigent, ‘Bent, (James) Theodore (1852–1897)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford University Press, 2004)

In 1939, in the early months of the Second World War, British officials began making enquiries into the presence in Bahrain of members of a paramilitary Islamic social movement that sought the overthrow of British rule in India, and drew inspiration from Adolf Hitler.

The Khaksar movement was founded in Lahore in 1931 by Inayatullah Khan Mashriqi, a Cambridge-educated mathematician and Islamic scholar.

The movement was overtly Islamic, but claimed to wish to give equal rights to all faiths. It was highly organised, and rapidly acquired millions of members. It was also militaristic, with khaki uniforms, organised marches, and mock warfare. The movement’s emblem was the spade, egalitarian symbol of the dignity of labour, which its members literally carried around with them.

Khaksars in uniform, 1930s. The figure in the centre of the back row carries the Khaksar belcha (spade). Source: Wikipedia.

The Khaksar movement’s philosophy was enshrined in a creed and set of principles, which emphasised discipline and self-sacrifice, and encouraged the spread of Islam. However, the movement denied any involvement in politics, and its anti-colonialism went unstated.

The movement’s dictatorial beliefs and uniform prompted comparisons with contemporary Fascist organisations in Europe. Indeed, Mashriqi is said to have met Hitler in 1926 and to have been influenced by Mein Kampf, which he translated into Urdu.

Bahrain was the centre of the embryonic oil industry on the Arab side of the Gulf in 1939, and with the advent of war against those same European Fascist powers, the region constituted a key source of oil for Britain’s war effort.

The British compiled lists of those involved with the movement in Bahrain (about forty people, all of them members of the Indian community), including oil industry workers and a tailor.

Part of a letter dated 20 December 1939 from the Assistant Political Agent, Bahrain to the Director, Intelligence Bureau, Government of India, New Delhi, giving information on the Khaksar Movement in Bahrain, which he describes as ‘the object of much derision by the Arab population’: IOR/R/15/2/168, f 24.

The conclusion reached by British officials was that there was ‘nothing objectionable’ in the activities of the movement’s members in Bahrain, which were confined to a weekly uniformed march, and regular meetings. The British Political Agent in Bahrain was also sceptical about the movement’s wider appeal to Muslims, stating that it was ‘not likely ever to be of much significance on the Arab Coast, where a movement whose symbol is a spade can excite only derision’.

However, all that changed in March 1940 when more than thirty Khaksars were killed by police in a protest at Lahore. The movement was now viewed by the authorities as a danger and banned, and the ban prompted further enquiries into the strength of the movement in Bahrain. Fifteen further members, including workers at a shipping company and the RAF base, were identified by tracing the distribution of the Khaksar newspaper, Al Islah.

The Gazette of India, 20 March 1940, published the day after the deaths of Khaksar members at Lahore, announcing the Chief Commissioner of Delhi’s decision to declare the Khaksar Movement an unlawful association: IOR/R/15/2/168, f 31.

If the British feared a wartime outbreak of pan-Islamic unrest they need not have worried, because the Gulf states gave loyal support to the Allied cause throughout the war. Inayatullah Khan too, on his way to jail in New Delhi, pointed out that he had previously offered to raise a force of 50,000 men to fight alongside the British.

However, the implications for British rule in India were different, and the activities of Mashriqi and the Khaksars were a contributory factor in achieving the independence of Pakistan in 1947.

Martin Woodward
Archival Specialist, British Library/Qatar Foundation Partnership

Further reading:
British Library: 'File 1/A/47 Khaksar Movement'. IOR/R/15/2/168
Amalendu De, History of the Khaksar Movement in India (1931-1947) 2 vols (Kolkata: Parul Prakashani, 2009) I
Roy Jackson, Mawlana Mawdudi and Political Islam: Authority and the Islamic state (Taylor and Francis, 2010)

 

On 18 October 1914 a British officer named Lieutenant Fitzpatrick arrived at Bahrain bearing a letter marked ‘very secret’  for the Bahrain Political Agent, Captain Terence Keyes. The letter was from Keyes’ superior, Political Resident Lieutenant-Colonel Knox, and informed him that 5,000 Indian troops would be arriving in Bahrain in less than a week's time.

   

Sketch of camp, 1 mile south of Manama (Bahrain Island), IOR/R/15/2/1820, f 3. The key lists divisions that were part of Indian Expeditionary Force ‘D’. 

Keyes and Fitzpatrick had just five days to select a site on Bahrain’s main island, capable of supporting a camp for 5,000 men. The two men quickly set about identifying disembarkation points in the town for the troops and livestock, routes through the town’s narrow streets to possible camping grounds, water supplies and sanitation.

On the morning of 22 October, the Ruler of Bahrain, Shaikh Isa bin Ali Al Khalifah was informed of the plans. The Shaikh’s response, Keyes later wrote to the Resident, was ‘extremely satisfactory’. Shaikh Isa did, however, raise one point: the camp site selected, close to his own fort, would prove awkward in the following June, when his ‘own people’ had arranged to encamp in the very same place.

 
Extract of a sketch map indicating disembarkation points and route through the town to camp sites. IOR/R/15/2/1820, f 14.

Shaikh Isa’s comment alludes to the fact that the Indian troops bound for Bahrain – troops that comprised part of the Indian Expeditionary Force D, and that would go on to fight against the Turkish Army in the First World War’s Eastern theatre in Mesopotamia – were not working to any fixed timetable. Their stay in Bahrain was to be open-ended, entirely dependent on events in the war.

Unsurprisingly, the arrival of the transport ships and other military vessels off the Bahrain coast on 23 October 1914 was met with excitement and unease in the streets of Manama. Even though the vessels could hardly be seen from the harbour and wharves of the town – the convoy being moored more than three miles out because of the islands’ shallow coastal waters – there was much nervousness about their presence.

In spite of the support of Bahrain’s rulers and the most prominent Arab merchants in the town, Keyes wrote that ‘several deputations of Arabs endeavoured to work the Shaikh up against the landing of the troops'. They might have been encouraged by Herr Harling, Bahrain agent for the German company Robert Wonckhaus & Company. Harling, so Keyes claimed, was stirring up anti-British feeling amongst Bahrain’s Persian inhabitants, and conniving with ‘some minor member’ of the Al Khalifah ruling family. On 28 October Keyes had Harling arrested, with orders for his internment for the duration of the war.

   
Extract of a letter sent by the Political Agent at Bahrain, Captain Terence Keys, to the Political Resident in the Persian Gulf, 4 November 1914, describing the German Herr Harling’s activities at Bahrain. IOR/L/PS/11/86, P 4923/1914.

Meanwhile, the ladies of the American Mission were sent out on a charm offensive to allay the fears of the female inhabitants of Manama. In spite of all efforts though, Keyes had to concede that there was a growing sense of uneasiness and objection to the anticipated presence of the troops, in spite of all his efforts to dispel any concerns. Rumours abounding (reported by Harling in a letter sent to the German Consul at Bushire) that a further 15,000 troops were on their way to join the 5,000 already arrived at Bahrain doubtless did little to help matters.

 

Extract of a letter sent by the Political Agent at Bahrain, Captain Terence Keys, to the Political Resident in the Persian Gulf, 4 November 1914. IOR/L/PS/11/86, P 4923/1914.

Ultimately, the 5,000 troops that anchored off the coast of Bahrain did not set foot in Bahrain. They remained on their vessels until 2 November, when they sailed to the Shatt-al-Arab, in response to Turkish hostilities against the Russian fleet in the Black Sea.

 

Extract of a translation of a letter written by Herr Harling to the Imperial German Consulate in Bushire, 24 October 1914. IOR/L/PS/11/86, P 4923/1914.

Mark Hobbs
Subject Specialist, Gulf History Project British Library/Qatar Foundation Partnership 

Further reading:

‘Campsites in Bahrain’ IOR/R/15/2/1820

‘Bahrain: arrival of Expeditionary Force D; state of feeling on the island; intrigues of Messrs Wonckhaus, and his deportation’ IOR/L/PS/11/86, P 4923/1914.

‘Correspondence of Wonckhaus agent at Bahrein’ IOR/L/PS/11/91, P 1203/1915.

‘File 8/16 Bahrain Intelligence Reports’ IOR/R/15/2/314

‘Naval Staff monographs (historical) vol 4 no 15 - Naval operations in Mesopotamia and the Persian Gulf’ IOR/L/MIL/17/15/73

‘Report by Brigadier W. S. Delamain, C.B., D.S.O., on the operations of the Indian Expeditionary Force "D" up to 14th November 1914' IOR/L/MIL/17/15/88

‘Critical Study of the Campaign in Mesopotamia up to April 1917: Part I – Report’ IOR/L/MIL/17/15/72/1

Paul Knight, The British Army in Mesopotamia 1914-1918 (London: McFarland & Company, 2013)

Born on this day in 1886, Edward William Charles Noel remains one of the lesser known British political officers and spies who served in the Middle East during the First World War. In his book, On Secret Service East of Constantinople, Peter Hopkirk likens Noel to Ludovic ‘Sandy’ Arbuthnot, friend of Richard Hannay in John Buchan’s novels.

Noel began his career as a subaltern in the Indian Army and later served as British Vice-Consul at Ahwaz, in Persia. During the First World War he took part in various secret missions, one of which involved assisting the Russian Tsarist General Peter Polovstov and his wife (who were disguised as a United States missionary and his wife) in their escape from Russia. 

Personal file of Edward William Charles Noel IOR/R/1/4/1284

As Hopkirk states, Noel remained throughout his life an elusive character. The British Library holds copies of a published official diary by Noel, which documents his activities on special duty in Kurdistan during 1919, but Noel kept no private diaries and despite living well into old age never felt compelled to write his memoirs.

However, there are various stories about Noel’s early career in the Indian Army. For instance, he may well have been the first (or at least one of the first) to cycle all the way from England to India, in 1909, and again in 1910.

David Fitzpatrick
Content Specialist, Archivist, British Library/Qatar Foundation Partnership 

Further Reading:
Peter Hopkirk, On Secret Service East of Constantinople: The Plot to Bring Down the British Empire (Oxford, 1995)
Edward William Charles Noel, Diary of Major E.M. Noel, C.I.E., D.S.O., On Special Duty in Kurdistan from June 14th to September 21st 1919 (Basra, 1920).
Documents from the India Office Records about Noel's service are listed in Explore Archives and Manuscripts

How did a black African slave come to be chosen as the leader of an Arab Gulf sheikhdom in 1937?

When Sheikh Said, Ruler of Kalba died on 30 April 1937, the leading citizens (or ‘notables’) of this small Trucial State elected his 12-year-old son Sheikh Hamad as his successor. This meant that a regent was needed to rule over Kalba until Hamad came of age. The choice of the notables was Barut bin Yakut, an African, and a man whose official status was that of slave.

Slavery had been largely abolished in the British Empire in 1833, but the Arab states of the Persian Gulf, most of which later became an informal part of the British Empire, retained the custom. Indeed, slavery in some Gulf states was not formally abolished until the 1960s.

Oilfields map of the Middle East [detail], showing Kalba: IOR/R/15/1/700, f 248.

There was a long history of the enslavement of East African people by Gulf slave traders, and Barut would have been part of this trade. However, Gulf slavery at this period is not to be compared with the worst historical excesses of slave ownership, and the system also presented talented people with opportunities for personal advancement.

It seems that Barut had lived in Kalba since the end of the nineteenth century. The sheikhdom, on the Gulf of Oman, became independent from Sharjah in 1903. By then Barut had risen to be the head slave of Sheikh Said, and acted as governor of the state during the Sheikh’s absence.

In the uncertainty that followed Sheik Said’s death in 1937, Barut initially fled Kalba, fearful of who might take over power. But following the election of the young Sheikh Hamad, the inability of the notables of Kalba to agree on a suitable choice for regent from amongst their own number led them – unanimously – to choose Barut, on the grounds that he was ‘capable, experienced and well acquainted with the affairs of the state’.

Letter dated 1 July 1937 from the notables of Kalba to the Political Agent, Bahrain informing him of their choice of Barut as regent for the boy Sheikh Hamad bin Said: IOR/15/2/2016, f 148.

The notables’ choice left the British authorities in the Gulf with a dilemma. Although there were precedents for slaves acting as heads of tribes in the region, any decision to formally recognise Barut as regent would be embarrassing given his legal status. The British also feared that the rulers of the other Trucial States (the modern United Arab Emirates) would be reluctant to accept a slave as de facto ruler.

Letter dated 13 August 1937 from the Secretary of the Political Resident in the Persian Gulf to the Political Agent, Bahrain, reporting the Political Resident’s view that official British recognition of a slave would appear ‘somewhat queer’ in the eyes of the Trucial Sheikhs IOR/R/15/2/2016, f 179.

In the event, the British authorities put pressure on the notables of Kalba to choose someone else, and the decision led to the appointment as regent of Sheikh Khalid bin Ahmed, the former ruler of Sharjah and a close relative of the young Sheikh.

Despite being appointed Regent of Kalba, Sheikh Khalid preferred to spend his time sorting out tribal differences elsewhere, and control over Kalba’s day-to-day affairs was again left to Barut.

Kalba’s independent existence came to an end in 1952, when the state came back under the direct administration of Sharjah.

Martin Woodward
Archival Specialist, British Library/Qatar Foundation Partnership

Further reading:
British Library: 'File B/17 Kalba - Affairs regarding.'. IOR/R/15/2/2016
Frauke Heard-Bey, From Trucial States to United Arab Emirates (London and New York: Longman, 1982)
Jim Krane, Dubai: The Story of the World’s Fastest City (London: Atlantic Books, 2009)
Rosemarie Said Zahlan, The Origins of the United Arab Emirates (London: Macmillan, 1978).

These recent days have seen the 85th anniversary of the arrival in  February 1931 of the party including the legendary Omani, Shaikh Saleh bin Kalut al Rashidi al Kathiri, who guided Bertram Thomas across the Empty Quarter, to complete the first recorded crossing of the Rub’ al-Khali desert or the Empty Quarter: in 1930 ‘the broadest expanse of unexplored territory outside the Antarctic’.

They had started off from Salalah, Dhofar on December 10, enduring extreme hardship and constant threat of ambush by warring tribes to arrive in Doha, Qatar, 59 days later. Here they were warmly greeted by a welcoming party headed by the Emir of Qatar Sheikh Abdullah bin Jassim Al Thani.   Never would the sight of the ruler’s fort have been so welcome as it appeared to that band of weary travellers through the haze of desert air.  In celebration of the epic traversal of 1930/31, an Anglo-Omani expedition of three Omanis and one Briton have just retraced their steps, in audacious homage to the explorers of the earlier Anglo-Omani odyssey.

By completing this feat of desert exploration, Thomas and his party beat Harry St John Philby to the prize and glory of first crossing. St John Philby had based himself in Riyadh as he prepared to make his own journey.  It is reported that the news of Thomas’ successful crossing left Philby so deflated he refused to come out of his room for a week.  To rub salt in the wound Thomas also visited Riyadh some years later, an opportunity being afforded him by the post of Publicity Officer, Bahrain.  With reference to his preference for exploration over paperwork the Government of India informed the India Office, London, that: 

‘We endorse recommendations that post of Publicity Officer be offered to Bertram Thomas in terms proposed by Prior and subject to Thomas being fit and willing to subordinate private to public interest.’  

The Government of India’s endorsement of Thomas  IOR/R/15/2/933

From Bahrain Thomas made another pioneering trip, this time by car along gravel tracks to Riyadh: ‘there was rain almost every day and we were bogged on occasions for hours at a time’.

He later reported to the Political Resident: “I had three very cordial conversations with Ibn Sa’ud who talked to me very freely and frankly about a great many subjects.  He gave me the whole story of the part he had played at the time of Rashid Ali’s rebellion, of the flying visit to him of Naji as Suwaidi which was most interesting. He also expressed his views on the Palestine question.  I got the impression that he thinks in qua-Moslem rather than qua-Arab conceptions of politics. He said that the greatest page in our history was written in the year during this war when we stood alone.  He is a convinced believer in our star and in our destiny to shape the post-war world.”

Thomas’ assessment of the court of Ibn Sa’ud IOR/R/15/1/573 f 149

Thomas came away from his trip to Riyadh, ‘as does everybody, British and Americans alike’, with a great number of presents including a sword, a gold dagger and gold bangles; such things he continued to gather through other postings in Arabia which included representing the Anglo-Dutch oil company Shell in the shaikhdoms of  Trucial Oman. 

‘Oil fields and Concession Areas in the Middle East’ IOR/R/15/1/700 f 248

Thomas was not to see the change in Britain's post-war world, heralded most dramatically at Suez. He died in Cairo in 1950, and in a form of poetry in motion, at the end of all his gruelling and groundbreaking sojourns in Arabia, he was returned to the quintessential English village of Easton-in-Gordano, Somerset, to be buried near the house where he was born.

Dr Francis Owtram, Gulf History Specialist, British Library/Qatar Foundation Partnership bl.uk/Qatar

Primary sources:
British Library, London, IOR/R/15/1/573  ff 152-154
British Library, London, IOR/R/15/2/933 f 6
Bertram Thomas, Arabia Felix: Across the Empty Quarter of Arabia (Jonathan Cape, 1938)
Mark Evans, Crossing the Empty Quarter: In the Footsteps of Bertram Thomas (Gilgamesh, 2016)
http://www.gilgamesh-publishing.co.uk/crossing-the-empty-quarter.html
Crossing the Empty Quarter – Tahaddi Arabia
Francis Owtram, A Modern History of Oman: Formation of the State since 1920 (IB Tauris, 2004)

Having explored the passenger facilities at Sharjah aerodrome in an earlier post, we will now move to the next aerodrome on the Imperial Airways route - Bahrain.  Compared to Sharjah, the aerodromes in Bahrain offered relatively little in terms of conveniences for passengers. There were two terminals, one for flying boats and the other for conventional aircraft. The more developed terminal for landplanes was on Muharraq Island and the smaller flying boat terminal was at Manama.  The landing strip on Muharraq was delineated by a circular marking composed of ‘Portland Cement Concrete in the proportions of 1 part of cement to six parts of broken stone’ and this was topped with bitumen paint.

Bahrain’s position relative to Sharjah meant that it was either the penultimate stop or the lunchtime stop on the eastbound or westbound routes respectively. The aerodrome was described by through passengers as being a small part of a ‘sandy waste’. The only terminal building was a ‘barusti’ or thatched palm shack, with walls composed of 88065 cubic feet coral stone masonry built in mud.  There was a signpost outside, ‘one arm pointing to London and the other to Karachi’. Whilst wrapped up in their aviation adventure, through passengers would have consumed lunch for the 45 minutes it took to refuel the plane, the gentle desert wind wafting through gaps in the roof above their heads.

  
Barusti hangar at Bahrain, watercolour by H.W Hailstone around the Second World War © Imperial War Museum (Art.IWM ART LD 5272) 
 

Five years after the first commercial flights from the landing strip at Muharraq, Imperial Airways’ Short brothers Canopus class flying boats started landing at Manama, just off the north-eastern edge of the city. The flying boat aerodrome at Manama offered a similarly rudimentary passenger experience to Muharraq: the map below shows the ‘suggested site for passenger shelter’ which sat on a small pontoon jutting out into the bay.
 

Map from file IOR/R/15/2/517. f.124r dated 9 November 1937.

The lack of facilities for passengers at Muharraq is highlighted by correspondence concerning preparations for the fly through in 1934 of Lord Willingdon, Viceroy of India.  A letter from the Political Agency of Bahrain stated:  ‘I hope that His Excellency the Viceroy will permit those present at Bahrain aerodrome to wear hot weather lounge suits in view of weather’. So perhaps facilities for shade could have been improved!  In a letter from the Viceroy of India’s staff it is noted that Lord and Lady Willingdon ‘will be very pleased to accept the invitation of the Shaikh of Bahrain to take coffee with him in the tent which he proposes to pitch’ which does not sound exactly prepossessing for a Viceroy or other VIPs who would have been accustomed to 1930s elegance.

 

Rolling forward into 2015, and unlike Sharjah, all traces of the former aerodrome have been obliterated as shown in the two maps above, the first dating from 1934. 

Ellis Meade
Imaging and Quality Assurance Technician, British Library/Qatar Foundation Partnership 

Further reading:
File IOR/R/15/2/517, f.124r
File IOR/R/15/2/590, f.35r, f.17r
Alexander Frater, Beyond the Blue Horizon (Penguin, 1986)

Related articles

Flying over the liners: Passenger aviation across the Gulf during the 1930s

John Michael Houghton was an important member of the East India Company’s expedition that surveyed the Persian Gulf during the 1820s. A talented draughtsman by trade (his fourth son was the painter Arthur Boyd Houghton), he drew many of the charts and maps produced by the survey, now held in the British Library’s India Office Records map collection. Houghton’s drawings of towns such as Dubai, Sharjah and Al Bida (Doha) are amongst the earliest-known visual descriptions of these places.

Lieutenant Houghton, ‘Debay in 6 ½ fathoms’ IOR/X/10310, f 15

Houghton also wrote a ‘memoir’ which describes all that he saw on the survey between Musandam and Dubai. This memoir has been digitised and is now published on the Qatar Digital Library.

Houghton was born in London in 1797, the son of a naval surgeon employed by the East India Company.  He received a classical education before sailing for China on board the Elphinstone on 25 March 1812. In Canton he transferred to the Bombay Marine’s survey ship Discovery, which spent five years surveying the China Seas. By 1821, Houghton had risen to the rank of Second Lieutenant, and was working as marine draughtsman on the East India Company’s survey of the shores of the Persian Gulf.

 

Houghton’s signature, in the introduction to his ‘Memoir’ of the Arab coast of the Gulf. IOR/X/10309, f 4

Lieutenant John Guy, commanding officer of the Discovery, engaged Houghton to produce an account of the voyage along the Arab coast of the Gulf.  In vivid detail he described the coastal landscapes he saw, and the human settlements and local rulers he encountered, writing from the perspective of an outsider encountering a foreign land. Houghton described the houses of Sharjah as ‘mean’ and the town of Dubai as ‘a miserable assemblage of mud hovels, surrounded by a cow mud wall’.

 

Lieutenant Houghton, Extract of the coast from Jezeerat Gunnum to Ras Sheik Munsoud. ‘Continuation’. IOR/X/10310, f 7

Of greatest interest to Houghton were the geological formations he saw from the deck of the Discovery.  Studying the cliffs and shallow inlets encountered along the Arabian coast of the Persian Gulf, Houghton compared and contrasted what he saw with what he had read in the latest geological studies from Europe, including the works of  John Playfair, Erhard Georg Friedrich Wrede, Leopold von Buch, and John MacCulloch.

Plate from John MacCulloch, A Description of the Western Islands of Scotland, including the Isle of Man (1819) via archive.org

Comparing the southern climes of the Persian Gulf with the seas around northern Europe, Houghton began to formulate conclusions of his own. His observations led him to refute Wrede’s ideas that ‘the sea is retreating to the southern hemisphere’, and the Italian natural philosopher Paolo Frisi’s assertion that the sea appeared to be ‘sinking near the poles, and rising towards the Equator’.

Houghton continued his rise through the ranks of the Bombay Marine after the completion of the Persian Gulf survey. By 1833, he had risen to the rank of Commander, and was Auditor of the Indian Navy. Ill health forced him to retire in 1838, though it was not until 1874 that he died at his home in Hampstead, London.

Mark Hobbs
Subject Specialist, British Library/Qatar Foundation Partnership 

Further reading:
Maps and other records produced by Houghton on the Qatar Digital Library
‘Coast Views taken while employed on the Survey of the Arabian Side of the Gulf of Persia By Lieutenant M. Houghton, Draughtsman H.C. Marine’. IOR/X/10310. British Library, London
‘Persian Gulf single charts.–Memoir.–Lieut. Houghton’. IOR/X/10309. British Library, London
Paul Hogarth, Arthur Boyd Houghton (London: Gordon Fraser, 1981)
Maurice Packer, Officers of the Bombay Marine (London: c.2012)