Enclosed Herewith: Specimens of Ore from the Kuria Muria Islands
Recently the British Library/Qatar Foundation Partnership programme discovered an unusual enclosure in some India Office correspondence: four small specimens of ore, contained in a little pouch. Where were these specimens from and how did they become part of the India Office Records?
IOR/L/PS/12/2106, f 17: pouch containing four specimens of ore
The specimens were given to Lieutenant-Colonel William Rupert Hay, Political Resident in the Persian Gulf, by some inhabitants of Al Hallaniyah during Hay’s visit to the island on 7 April 1947. Al Hallaniyah is the largest of the Kuria Muria Islands, a group of five islands located in the Arabian Sea, off the coast of Oman. The islands were presented as a gift to Britain by the Sultan of Muscat in 1854, and they became the responsibility of the Government of Bombay in British India. They were highly valued for their guano deposits, which were exhausted by 1860, following a brief but intensive period of extraction. The islands became part of the British Aden Colony, but for administrative purposes were placed under the control of the Political Resident in the Persian Gulf.
IOR/L/PS/12/2106, f 17a: four specimens of ore from Al Hallaniyah
Although the islands were long regarded by the British as being of little strategic or commercial interest, their status and administration became a topic of discussion between the India Office and the Colonial Office during the 1930s. This was mainly in relation to Aden’s separation from British India, but also because of the establishment of a strategic air route from Aden to Muscat.
The reasons behind Hay’s visit to the islands in 1947 are not entirely clear, but he appeared to take a personal as well as a professional interest in the islands. Following his visit he submitted a short article to The Geographical Journal (the journal of the Royal Geographical Society), which was published later that year. Hay was also curious about the properties of the specimens that he had received at Al Hallaniyah. A few days after his trip, in a letter to Eion Pelly Donaldson at the India Office in London, Hay wrote: ‘I forward herewith the specimens of ore handed to me on Hallaniyah Island. If there is no objection I should be grateful if you could kindly have them analysed and let me know the result'.
IOR/L/PS/12/2106, f 21: letter from the Political Resident in the Persian Gulf to the India Office
The specimens were duly sent to the Geological Survey and Museum (now part of the Natural History Museum) in South Kensington. After an initial inspection the specimens were identified as being crystals of iron pyrites, and were deemed not to be of commercial value. Donaldson informed Hay of the results and added ‘[w]e will keep the specimens here for the time being, unless you want them returned’. Presumably Hay did not express any interest in retaining the specimens, which have remained with the correspondence ever since.
IOR/L/PS/12/2106, f 13: letter from the India Office to the Political Resident in the Persian Gulf
Images of the specimens will be made available on the Qatar Digital Library website later this year.
David Fitzpatrick
Content Specialist, Archivist, British Library/Qatar Foundation Partnership
Further reading:
Coll 6/39 'Kuria Muria Islands: Administration and Status of', IOR/L/PS/12/2106
John Gordon Lorimer, Gazetteer of the Persian Gulf, ’Omān and Central Arabia, 2 vols (Calcutta: Superintendent Government Printing, India, 1908), II, pp. 1043-1045.
William Rupert Hay, ‘The Kuria Muria Islands’, The Geographical Journal, 109 (1947) No. 4/6 (April-June 1947), 279-281.