Page 104 - The Postal Agencies in Eastern Arabia

extern that the ensuing correspondence now in the India Office Library,
lasted a year before the bill was finally accepted! The Political Agent’s
residence was on the first floor of the building, and an additional
drawing room was built over a flat roof in Shakcspcar’s time. The
Agency offices were on the ground floor, and the right hand corner
window was that of the Post Office which had a service hatch facing
the narrow lane on the right of the building.

The old Political Agency Building (1966)
(Photo. M. G. Shirley).

The original double curved stairway was altered in 1933 or 1934
when the road between the building and the Agency garden was
widened, and there is now a single stairway running upwards from the
left. In 1935, when the new Political Agency building (now the British
Embassy) was completed, the old buildingbecame wholly a private
residence; which it remains to this day. With a known age of 70 years,
this must be one of the oldest remaining buildings in Kuwait; and as long
ago as 1918 the then Political Agent (Capt. G. Loch) refused to use it
except as his office, preferring to live in the old Quarantine Station
outside the Jahara Gate whence he rode to work each day by camel!

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