Page 149 - Arabian Studies (V)

British Financial Advisers in Muscat 139
the notice sent there, and then out of Bushire to Muscat when another copy
was sent to Bushire. IO, R/l5/3/58; various correspondence.
23. IO, R/15/1/453; Howell to Biscoe, 23 June 1931; Deputy Secretary
in the Foreign Department, Government of India, to PRPG, No. F.228-
N/31,22 October 1931.
24. Hedgcock’s actions had caused Biscoe to comment that ‘I have long
ago come to the conclusion that close and prolonged contact with Arabs
induces in many Europeans a wholly abnormal state of mind which is
frequently difficult to cope with’. IO, R/15/1/429; Biscoe to Howell,
Demi-official No. 290-S, 25 May 1931. It is interesting to note that both
Thomas’s and Hedgcock’s names appeared later in connection with Omani
affairs. Thomas was public relations officer in the Gulf during World War
II and later met Sa‘id b. Taymur in Jerusalem in 1945 when he was
Director of the Middle East Centre for Arabic Studies (MECAS).
Hedgcock was later employed by the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company subsi­
diary, Petroleum Concessions Ltd. (PCL), and was briefly considered as
part of a PCL negotiating team to be sent to Muscat in 1946 before the
PRPG vetoed his presence.
25. The Word of Sultan Sa'id bin Taymur, Sultan of Muscat and
Oman, About the History of the Financial Position of the Sultanate in the
Past and What It Is Hoped It Will Be in the Future, After the Export of
Oil, printed in Arabic and English edns., n.p., Shawwal 1387/January
1968.’
26. IO, R/15/3/58; Fowle to Howell, Demi-official No. 527-S, 24
August 1931.
27. IO, R/l5/1/454; PAM Bremner to PRPG Fowle, No. 248-C, 26
December 1933.
28. Even when another expatriate was appointed Secretary for Financial
Affairs in that year, his writ was considerably less than that of Thomas and
Hedgcock several decades earlier.
29. A pertinent example was his action in 1931 to bring the largely
autonomous district of Suhar under the direct supervision of Muscat for the
first time in a century and a half. Its semi-independent ruler, Hamad b.
Faysal A1 Bu Sa‘Id, was subsequently made wall (governor) of Matrah
under the watchful eye of the new Sultan. IO, R/15/3216; PRPG Fowle to
A. E. B. Parsons, Foreign Secretary to the Government of India, Demi-
official No. C/166, 16 August 1937.