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end. Similar to Joyce, Smith omitted the beginnings of the Movement going
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straight to the stoning incident and what followed.
On the stoning of Lloyd’s car, Bahraini and Arab historians mention little
detail of the incident. For example, Al-Ghanem and Falah Al-Mudairis both skip the
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incident as a whole and jump to the events that followed. Al-Aubaidi, however,
provided a summary of the incident by using only two sources to recall the event,
those being the Government of Bahrain Annual Report of 1956 and Belgrave’s
memoir. The incident and details of the stoning of the Foreign Secretary’s car will
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be examined in this thesis as this event could well be considered as a crucial
moment in the conflict and one that involved British Cabinet members directly in
Bahrain’s affairs.
In addition to the historians who wrote about the events that unfolded
between Belgrave and the nationalists, there have been attempts by Bahrainis to
translate selected passages from Belgrave’s memoir, diary, and other publications
while offering some commentary. The first attempted translation was published by
Mahdi Abdulla entitled The Memoirs of Belgrave, the Former Adviser of the
Government of Bahrain in 1991 and the second was by Sheikha Mai Al-Khalifa in her
book Charles Belgrave Biography and Memoirs 1926-1957 in 2000. Other
publications that had covered the nationalist movement of the 1950s in Bahrain
88 S.C. Smith, Britain’s Revival and Fall in the Gulf: Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar and the Trucial States, 1950-
1971 (London: 2013), 10.
89 A. Al-Ghanem, Tarikh Bidayt Al-Eslah fi Al-Bahrain [The History of Early Reform in Bahrain] (2009),
465; and F. Al-Mudairis, Al-Harakat wa Al-Jama’at Al-Siyasiya fi Al-Bahrain 1938-2002 [The Political
Movements and Groups in Bahrain 1938-2002] (Beirut: 2004), 20-23.
90 E.K. Al-Aubaidi, Al-Harakah Al-Wataniya fi Al-Bahrain [National movements in Bahrain 1914-1971]
(London: 2004), 135-36.
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