Page 8 - Begrave Thesis_Neat

Preface

A little less than fifty years ago, Sir Charles Dalrymple Belgrave left Bahrain

and went back to his home country, Britain. However his name will always be

linked with the history of Bahrain. Some of the older generation of Bahrainis hold

fond memories of Belgrave, the British Adviser to the Government of Bahrain from

1926 to 1957. My late grandmother used to describe how she would see Belgrave

riding his horse in the early hours of the morning in the streets of the capital of

Manama near his house waving to Bahrainis as he inspected the streets. Although

he worked under the title of Adviser to the Government of Bahrain, his work was

more comprehensive as he actually managed the affairs of the local Administration.

During his stay in Bahrain he successfully created ‘one of the best administrated

states in the Middle East’, as the former British diplomat to the Middle East Sir

William Rupert Hay, noted.
1
His contributions affected the development of all aspects of Bahraini life and

transformed the sheikhdom into a modern state. ‘He Said Forward! To the

Backward’ declared Life magazine’s reporter James Bell, as he documented the

Adviser’s work. Bell also added that the Adviser had ‘made ancient Bahrain a model

for a new Western policy in [the] Middle East’. It was also Belgrave who
2

1 W.R. Hay, ‘The Impact of the Oil Industry on the Persian Gulf Shaykhdoms’, Middle East Journal, 9.4,
(1955), 361-72 (363).
2 J. Bell, ‘He Said Forward! To the Backward!’, Life, 17 November 1952, 157-74 (157).

© Hamad E. Abdulla iv