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'"NO MEDALS THIS TIME" by Sir Tom Hickinbotham, KCMG, KCVO, CIE, OBE' [19r] (37/336)
The record is made up of 1 volume (168 folios). It was created in 1982?. It was written in English. The original is part of the British Library: India Office The department of the British Government to which the Government of India reported between 1858 and 1947. The successor to the Court of Directors. Records and Private Papers Documents collected in a private capacity. .
Transcription
This transcription is created automatically. It may contain errors.
17 -
too unpleasant, maybe he was a witness only and not an accused.
The town of Riyadh was even in 1942 of considerable size, but owing to the
numerous date palm groves which hide many of the buildings from view, this
was not immediately apparent, and I was at first disappointed. The old
palace dominated the town and the residences of members of the Royal Family
and other notables outside the walls were impressive but the centre piece,
although it is not in the centre, was without doubt the Marabah Palace
which lay to the right of the town as we approached from Ram*ah and which
is the residence of the King. The Marabah Palace was not a single edifice
but a group of large buildings, which must have contained hundreds of rooms,
with curiously castellated roofs surrounded by a high wall in which great
square towers were set at intervals. It was built of mud crick with mud
plaster finish of a reddish tinge which gave the impression of red sand
stone and in the dry atmosphere of Nejd, wore almost as well.
We drove around the walls past the impressive main entrance gate and
through the hundreds of black goat*s hair tents of tribesmen who had assem
bled to receive their annual gifts of grain and money. Later His Royal
Highness the Amir Saud, the King's eldest son, was to tell me that not less
than nine thousand of these tribesmen were present each day and in addition
there were between fifteen and twenty thousand Indigent folk who benefited
daily from the King's bounty. No wonder when some weeks earlier I had
informed the Sheikh of Kuwait that His Majesty's Government was making a
loan to Ibn Saud because his treasury was temporarily empty he had, to my
surprise, laughed and said "It always is". Four or five miles further on
beyond the Marabah Palace we came to the
Wadi
A seasonal or intermittent watercourse, or the valley in which it flows.
Hanifa in which is situated,
among pleasant cool groves of palm grees, the Biddiya Palace where it was
often Ibn Saud's pleasure to spend the day in the summer and in the grounds
of which was the guest-house where I was to live during my stay in Riyadh.
Arrived at the door of the guest-house, we left the car and walking past a
saluting guard, we climbed a flight of steps to the first floor and I found
myself in undisputed possession of two bedrooms, a bathroom with a shower,
two sets of the "usual offices", a dining room and a sitting room with four
sofas and fifteen large armchairs. Never before had I been so generously
accommodated.
About this item
- Content
This volume is a set of typewritten memoirs by Sir Tom Hickinbotham, a retired officer of the British Indian Army and the Indian Political Service The branch of the British Government of India with responsibility for managing political relations between British-ruled India and its surrounding states, and by extension the Gulf, during the period 1937-47. . Hickinbotham held various positions in India and in the Middle East, and these memoirs recount stories from his time in Kuwait, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Quetta, Persia [Iran], Aden, Audhali, Bahrain and North Waziristan.
The memoirs were most likely completed in 1982-83; they cover the period 1927-1982, although most of the chapters relate to events from the 1930s and 1940s.
Hickinbotham writes not only about his official duties but also about various trips taken during periods of leave. Below is a list of the chapters, with a short summary of each:
- 'No Medals This Time' (ff 3-6) – details of an incident in Kuwait involving a dhow A term adopted by British officials to refer to local sailing vessels in the western Indian Ocean. that caught fire off the foreshore at Shuwaik [Ash Shuwaykh]
- 'The Silver Coin' (ff 7-10) – thoughts on the use of the Maria Theresa thaler in Arabia
- 'The Golden Dagger' (ff 11-36) – an account of Hickinbotham's unofficial visit to Riyadh to meet Ibn Saud [‘Abd al-‘Azīz bin ‘Abd al-Raḥmān bin Fayṣal Āl Sa‘ūd] in May 1942
- 'The Brass Pencase' (ff 37-53) – memories of a journey undertaken from Quetta to Europe via north Persia in 1927, travelling in a Fiat Tourer with Colonel T Nisbet (also referred to as the 'purple emperor'), on what Hickinbotham claims to have been the first trip taken by car from India to the Mediterranean
- 'The Bronze Boy' (ff 54-72) – reminiscences of weekends spent in 'Little Aden' (a rocky peninsula seven miles west of Aden), in 1938, and a later visit, in December 1961
- 'The Silver Letter Case' (ff 73-118) – details of a ten-day trip on the Audhali plateau in the summer of 1938, and a return visit, in December 1960 (the chapter ends with remarks on the situation in Yemen generally from the late sixties to the time of writing, i.e. 1982)
- 'The Agate Ring' (ff 119-144) – memories of travelling in Oman during the summer of 1940 and how this compared with Hickinbotham's last visit to the country in 1980
- 'The Pearl Tie Pin' (ff 145-151) – thoughts and anecdotes on the pearl trade in Bahrain
- 'A Point of View' (ff 152-157) – a story told to Hickinbotham, possibly fictional, of a pearl trader in the Gulf who lost his fortune and livelihood, and eventually his sanity
- 'Snakes Alive!!' (ff 158-161) – an account of a near-fatal encounter with a krite [krait] in Waziristan
- 'The Queen's Visit' (ff 162-168) – memories of the Queen's visit to the Aden Protectorate in 1954, where Hickinbotham was serving as Governor.
- Extent and format
- 1 volume (168 folios)
- Arrangement
The volume contains an index of chapter headings on folio 2, which includes some handwritten corrections and annotations.
- Physical characteristics
Foliation: the foliation sequence (used for referencing) commences at the first folio with 1, and terminates at the last folio with 168; these numbers are written in pencil, are circled, and are located in the top right corner of the recto The front of a sheet of paper or leaf, often abbreviated to 'r'. side of each folio. An additional mixed foliation/pagination sequence is also present in parallel between ff 3-168.
Condition: The original plastic comb binding ring has been replaced with a wider one to facilitate flat opening of the volume. Polyester film covers have been added to protect the first and last folios.
- Written in
- English in Latin script View the complete information for this record
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'"NO MEDALS THIS TIME" by Sir Tom Hickinbotham, KCMG, KCVO, CIE, OBE' [19r] (37/336), British Library: India Office Records and Private Papers, Mss Eur F226/13, in Qatar Digital Library <https://www.qdl.qa/archive/81055/vdc_100094411638.0x000026> [accessed 14 June 2026]
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Copyright: How to use this content
- Reference
- Mss Eur F226/13
- Title
- '"NO MEDALS THIS TIME" by Sir Tom Hickinbotham, KCMG, KCVO, CIE, OBE'
- Pages
- 1r:168v
- Author
- Hickinbotham, Sir Tom
- Usage terms
- The copyright status is unknown. Please contact [email protected] with any information you have regarding this item.