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details on the police’s handling of the crisis from his point-of-view. Belgrave blamed

the police for their failure to arrest any of the rioters and believed that they

deserved ‘to be sacked’. The reason for their failure to arrest those involved was

their belief that firearms would have been used in the process causing injuries and

loss of life. The Adviser further revealed that on the morning of 2 March the police

had unpacked packages of tear gas and had practiced using it. However during the

drill the wind had blown in the wrong direction. 521 Gough’s interest in Bahrain’s

affairs was apparently tied to his role in the insurance industry, for which he had

travelled to Bahrain on a number of occasions. 522

The British newspaper The Observer debated whether the riot was

intentionally staged during Lloyd’s visit or was ‘an unlucky coincidence’. The

newspaper leaned towards the second possibility, saying that ‘The supporters of

this movement [HEC] are also doubtless not immune from the general current of

political nationalism and “anti-imperialism” in the Arab World’. 523

Lloyd’s papers, located at Churchill Archives Centre in Cambridge,

surprisingly had more documents about valuing and insuring the ornamental sword

presented to him by the Ruler than about the riot and near disaster that he had

experienced. He had conducted detailed correspondence with the Alliance

Assurance Company and Spink and Son. 524

521 TNA, FO 371/120545, Belgrave to Freddie Gough by Belgrave, 8 March 1956.
522 TNA, FO 371/120545, Minutes on Bahrain drafted by C.T.E. Ewart-Biggs, 19 March 1956.
523 ‘Selwyn Lloyd Defends Regional Pacts’, The Observer 4 March 1956, 1.
524 Churchill College Cambridge, Churchill Archives Centre, Selwyn Lloyd’s Personal Papers and
Diaries, Letter from Spink and Son Ltd. to Lloyd, 10 April 1956, and Letter from Alliance Assurance
Company Limited to Lloyd, 18 April 1956.

© Hamad E. Abdulla 165