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'"NO MEDALS THIS TIME" by Sir Tom Hickinbotham, KCMG, KCVO, CIE, OBE' [148r] (295/336)
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.
146 -
be pearl trade suffered badly when the Japanese Introduced the cultured
pearl and the slimp in prices which followed In the twenties brought ruin to
many well-known dealers in oriental pearls. Later there was, as Is so often
the case, a partial recovery, but the finding of oil dealt an even severer
blow to the pearl trade of the
Persian Gulf
The historical term used to describe the body of water between the Arabian Peninsula and Iran.
. Oil meant alternative, less
trying, and far more remunerative employment for the crews of the sailing
vessels of the Gulf from which the majority of the divers came.
The pearling season was during the summer months when there was less likeli
hood of severe storms and the water was warmer for the divers. Another imp
ortant factor was that diving was always a temporary employment when men were
available from the ’'booms" and other large sailing craft which were at that
time of the year back from their winter trading voyages and laid up for clean
ing and overhaul on the beaches of Bahrein, Kuwait and Qatar. Nowadays when
so many of the sailing vessels have been replaced by coastal steamers able to
keep at sea at all seasons and carrying much smaller crews, and when attrac
tive permanent employment on land is available, the pearling fleet has been
reduced to a fraction of its previous size. The plain fact of the matter is
that owing to the resultant scarcity of divers, the cost of pearling is so
high today that in competition with the great advance in the science of pro
ducing cultured pearls, there is very little profit in the business.
Personally I daenot object to cultured pearls and in my opinion they are,
generally speaking, just as beautiful as natural pearls. There is no reason
why they should not be because they are made from precisely the same material
by the same
agency
An office of the East India Company and, later, of the British Raj, headed by an agent.
. It is impossible even for the expert to distinguish
between natural and cultural pearls without the aid of science in the form of
X-rays ' which show the shadow cast by the artiflcal core of the cultured
pearl. The exception to what I have just written is the supreme grade of
rose-pink natural oriental pearl, but it must be remembered that they are few
and far between. Even in the heyday of the diving in the
Persian Gulf
The historical term used to describe the body of water between the Arabian Peninsula and Iran.
when
more than a thousand vessels put to sea, I doubt whether more than twenty or
thirty pearls of even moderate size of this outstanding quality were found
during the whole of a season.
The diving season lasted for four months and ten days, and in Bahrein the
opening and closing dates were determined and announced by the Government.
The opening date was not particularly spectacular because boats had been
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' [148r] (295/336), British Library: India Office Records and Private Papers, Mss Eur F226/13, in Qatar Digital Library <https://www.qdl.qa/archive/81055/vdc_100094411639.0x000060> [accessed 26 December 2024]
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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.