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'AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIR HERBERT TODD, C.I.E. 1893-1977' [184r] (367/498)
The record is made up of 1 file (247 folios). It was created in 1976-1978. 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.
- 182 -
It ran right round to the Masbah area and the settling tanks where the
city^ drinking-water was sterilized. British engineers had installed in
Baghdad a piped water supply which was fit to be drunk straight from the taps
which was most unusual in an Asiatic country, v/here water usually had to be
boiled, or percolated through a sterilizer before drinking.
Field-Marshal Lord Alexander came out to Kuwait by a B.P. tanker and came
up to us at Baghdad for a day.
Then, on 20th January, 1956, arrived to stay with us the Rt. Hon.Walter
Elliott, P.C., C.H., M.C. etc. etc. and Mr. Peart, Labour M.P. (who later,
of course, became a Labour Cabinet Minister and raised to peerage). They
stayed with us for three nights and were pleasant company.
We gave a large evening reception at the Mansur Club to show our coloured
film of the Baghdad floods of last year and of the building and opening by
the King of the Daura Refinery. Issued some five hundred and twenty invita
tions, and over four hundred attended, from Ambassadors, Ministers and I.P.C.
staf£. ^eemed to be very well appreciated.
Admiral Si John Cunningham, I.P.C. Chairman, stopped off and stayed with
us for two or three days on his tour of our Middle East installations. He
dined with the British Ambassador and next day I took him to see the King
and Crown Prince.
Took Nancy over to Tripoli from whence she flew home to see how Grannie
was, as one letter from her spoke of illness and confinement to bed.
On return to Baghdad I had to fly down to Kuwait as there was a report
that the route surveyed for our proposed line from Basra was not acceptable
to the Shaikh of Kuwait, but I was able to straighten that out.
News of Glubb
Pasha
An Ottoman title used after the names of certain provincial governors, high-ranking officials and military commanders.
*s dismissal by King Hussein in Jordan. Poor King,
pushed into it by criticism of Syria, Saudi Arabia and Egypt. Later, however,
I heard Arab point of view which was that Glubb had acted unwisely in that
on grand parades he showed himself as in command of the Jordan Army, instead
About this item
- Content
Memoirs of Sir Herbert Todd (1893-1985) of 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. , later of the Iraq Petroleum Company. Written during the years 1976-78, the memoirs begin by recounting Todd's childhood on his family's farm in Kent, his education and entrance into the Home Civil Service in 1912, and his entrance into 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. in 1913. Roughly half of the memoirs (ff 10-137) covers Todd's career up to 1947, which can be summarised as follows:
- Posted to the Indian Police, Burma [Myanmar], 1913-17 (ff 10-22)
- Served in the 11th Bengal Lancers (Probyn's Horse), Indian Army, in Mesopotamia [Iraq], 1917-19 (ff 22-24)
- Remained in Baghdad as Assistant Commissioner of Police, Baghdad East Subdivision, 1919-20 (ff 25-31)
- Transferred to 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. , holding positions in Baluchistan, 1921; Gilgit, 1927; Quetta, 1931; Bharatpur, 1936-39 (ff 31-67)
- Served in the Home Guard during extended leave (1939-40), first in Canfield, Essex, and later in Blackheath, London (ff 68-72), followed by a spell as an air warden while awaiting re-posting to India (ff 72-78)
- First attempt at passage to India abandoned when the ship he was travelling on, SS Simla , was torpedoed, September 1940 (ff 79-88)
- Returned to India, holding positions at Udaipur, 1940 (ff 93-97); Baluchistan, 1941 (ff 97-101); Cochin [Kochi] and Travancore, 1943 (ff 101-111); and Calcutta [Kolkata] and the Eastern States, 1944-47 (ff 111-134)
- Returned to London on leave, April 1947; career brought to an abrupt end in June 1947 with the announcement of the handing over of power and Indian independence (ff 135-137).
The last hundred or so folios relate to Todd's employment in the Iraq Petroleum Company (IPC), 1948-59 (ff 138-227), and his subsequent retirement in Oxted, Surrey, 1959-78 (ff 227-248). As Chief Representative of the IPC, Todd and his wife spent much of their time in Baghdad. The memoirs document Todd's relations with prominent Iraqi politicians, diplomats, and visiting British MPs, as well as Todd's visits to Beirut, Damascus, Palestine, Jordan, Kuwait, Persia [Iran] and the United States. Also included are Todd's thoughts on the Suez Crisis and the 1958 revolution in Iraq (Todd was holidaying in Austria at the time and never returned to Baghdad).
Aside from his career, Todd writes about his hobbies (polo and hunting) and comments on UK and world events, such as the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II, the death of Winston Churchill, and the first moon landing in July 1969; he also mentions in passing meeting Professor Max Mallowan and Agatha Christie at the ancient Assyrian city of Nimrud (Iraq) in April 1955.
The text is typewritten with annotations and crossings out in pencil and ink. It includes some offensive terms and language in its descriptions of members of colonised populations.
- Extent and format
- 1 file (247 folios)
- Physical characteristics
Foliation: the foliation sequence (used for referencing) commences at the front cover with 1, and terminates at the inside back cover with 249; 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. The file also contains an original printed foliation sequence. It should be noted that number 13 in the original foliation sequence is missing (in between folios 14 and 15).
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- English in Latin script View the complete information for this record
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- Reference
- Mss Eur F226/30
- Title
- 'AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIR HERBERT TODD, C.I.E. 1893-1977'
- Pages
- 2r:248v
- Author
- Todd, Sir Herbert John
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