Page 135 - Histories of City and State in the Persian Gulf_Neat

Restructuring city and state 115

6 Charles Belgrave in his office instructing Baluchi policemen as Head
of the Bahrain Police Force, mid 1940s. Standing on his left side is an
officer of Iraqi origin.
controlled by the ruling family were separated from those controlled by
the state. 7
Between 1919 and 1926 the British agents acted as the executors of the
provisions of the Bahrain Order-in-Council and established the new
administrative bodies. After 1926 Charles Belgrave, formerly of the
Colonial Office, assumed responsibility for the continuation of the
reforms and for the day-to-day administration of Bahrain as the financial
advisor to Shaykh Hamad. Although the appointment of Belgrave
responded to a new imperial vision of ‘necessary’ interference in the
islands, it effectively separated the political agency from the new state
apparatus. The role of Belgrave was far more prominent than that sug-
gested by his title of financial advisor. After 1926 he controlled the new
administration, and was in charge of key departments such as Land
Registration, Finance and of the newly formed State Police. As the
éminence grise of state formation, Belgrave organised a self-financing and
efficient administration (see Figure 6). As aptly summed up by Glen
Balfour-Paul: ‘the progress in administrative disciplines which he

7
Khuri, Tribe and State in Bahrain, pp. 89–101, 109–110; al-Tajir, Bahrain, 1920–1945,
pp. 52–3.