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the Arab World. A special ceremony was held for the award at the Hyde Park Hotel
on 7 December and was attended by dignitaries from around the world. 936 Belgrave
died on 28 February 1969 in Kensington at the age of seventy-four. A memorial
service was held in his owner on 10 March. 937
Obituaries were placed in The Times and The Guardian as it recalled the
services of the Adviser to the government and people of Bahrain. 938 British
historian Elizabeth Monroe author of Britain’s Moment in the Middle East 1914-1956
wrote remembering Belgrave as she illustrated in The Times, that it was the
Adviser’s,
ill-luck to leave Bahrain at a moment when the anti-British tide was
running high, and so never heard the applause that he deserved for
the steady and devoted way in which he helped with the island’s slow
but solid development into a modern state. 939
Dr RHB Snow, who worked in Bahrain’s medical department, further added
in a separate obituary to Belgrave as he noted Belgrave’s virtues of ‘extreme
patience, courage and courtesy’. 940 Even past Bahraini foes like Sayyar testified
decades after his passing that,
Justice requires us to give Charles Belgrave his right in managing his
responsibilities assigned to him. He was the one who established
administrative systems and did all he could do in order for Bahrain to
become distinctive among the Gulf States. 941
Al-Mardi’s Al-Adwha’a determined vis-à-vis the Adviser that,
936 ‘Annual Dinner, 1967’, Journal of the Royal Central Asian Society, 55.1, (1968), 105-12.
937 ‘Obituary: Sir Charles Dalrymple Belgrave’, Journal of the Royal Central Asian Society, 56.2, (1969),
210-11.
938 ‘Obituary: Sir Charles Belgrave’, The Times, 1 March 1969, 10; and ‘Obituary: Sir Charles
Belgrave’, The Guardian, 3 March 1969, 5.
939 E. Monroe, ‘Obituary: Sir Charles Belgrave’, The Times, 5 March 1969, 13.
940 R.H.B. Snow, ‘Obituary: Sir Charles Belgrave’, The Times, 6 March 1969, 10.
941 A. Sayyar, ‘Biqalam Ali Sayyar’ [Written by Ali Sayyar], Kurasat Charles Belgrave 1926-1957
[Charles Belgrave Booklet], 6.
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