Page 101 - Histories of City and State in the Persian Gulf_Neat

Ordering space, politics and community in Manama, 1880s–1919 81

Al Khalifah family who competed with the native agent for the protection
of the town’s Indian mercantile community. 17
Uncertainty as to who was entitled to British protection persisted after
the appointment of a British assistant political agent in 1900, as the
concept of ‘foreigner’ continued to spark fierce controversy. Even cases
involving European merchants, whose interests were championed by the
agency as an extension of its concern for British trade, produced no clear-
cut guidelines. In 1908 Messrs Wonckhaus & Co., a German firm based
in Bahrain which represented the Hamburg–America Steamship Line,
lodged a complaint with the Bushehr residency against the landing con-
tractors of Manama’s harbour. The company maintained that the con-
tractors had not sent sufficient lighters to one of their steamers and that
only a fraction of the goods destined for Manama reached the shore, thus
causing considerable financial loss. When the case was referred to India
the company was eventually informed that the Government was in no
position to uphold the claim. 18
Besides integrating merchants and rulers into the ‘inner’ circle of
British informal empire, British protection and the trade boom of the
late nineteenth century transformed the landscape of Manama’s water-
front in ways which suggest the progressive empowerment of the town’s
merchant classes. By 1904 local merchants had built a new district with
separate landing facilities whose warehouses and offices towered over the
seafront. Lorimer noted that the new district offered the best accommo-
dation in town, although the Native Agent Muhammad Rahim com-
plained in 1898 that the new quays were built precariously and boats
were often crushed before they could land their cargo. 19 The outbreak
of World War I, which caused great economic hardship throughout the
region, forced Shaykh ‘Isa to resort to merchant capital in order to rescue
the town from famine. In 1917, as no commercial steamers had called at
the harbour for several months and the prices of basic commodities were
soaring in the central markets, he solicited a subscription for the con-
struction of a pier to facilitate the arrival and entry of goods into Bahrain. 20

17
R/15/1/138 IOR: Political Resident Bushehr to Government of India, 10 February 1853,
n. 56, 5 and 6 September 1853, n. 247; Native Agent Bahrain to Political Resident Bushehr,
16 May 1853.
18
Registers n. 1354 and 1153 with enclosures, L/P&S/10/83 IOR.
19
BA: Taqrir al-bai‘ (sale registration), 4 Rajab 1316/18 November 1898, 26 Jumada al-
Thaniyyah 1315/21 November 1897 and 16 Ramadan 1341/3 May 1923; waraqah al-
hibah (certificate of royal donation), Jumada al-Ula 1315/September–October 1897.
Lorimer, Gazetteer, vol. II, p. 1159; Cursetjee, The Land of the Date, p. 93.
20
Subscribers also included the leaders of the most influential pearling tribes of Muharraq
such as Shahin ibn Saqar Al Jalahimah, ‘Ali ibn Ibrahim al-Zayyani, Ahmad ibn Jasim ibn
Jawdar and Salman ibn Husayn al-Matar. R/15/2/49 IOR: Agreement dated 5 Safar 1335/