IOR/R/15/2/157

The volume concerns the Eastern boundary of Saudi Arabia with Qatar and Trucial Oman (also referred to as the Trucial Coast), and negotiations over the boundary between British officials and Ibn Saud (referred to also as Bin Saud) [‘Abd al-‘Azīz bin ‘Abd al-Raḥmān bin Fayṣal Āl Sa‘ūd, King of Saudi Arabia].

The volume contains reports and correspondence, principally from the Political Resident in the Persian Gulf; HM Minister, Jedda [Jeddah] (Sir Andrew Ryan); other Foreign Office officials; the Political Agent, Bahrain; Bertram Sydney Thomas; and officials of the India Office.

The papers include: extracts prepared by the Political Resident, for the India Office, from a report by Bertram Thomas on the Trans-Oman air route reconnaissance of May-June 1927 (folios 8-21); papers on Anglo-Saudi relations and records of negotiations between HM Minister, Jeddah and the Deputy Saudi Arabian Minister for Foreign Affairs (Fuad Bey Hamza [Fu’ād Ḥamzah]), July-October 1934 (folios 37-60); further papers concerning Anglo-Saudi negotiations; papers prepared by the Political Resident (Lieutenant-Colonel Trenchard Craven William Fowle) concerning Ibn Saud and the Yemen campaign, November 1934 (folios 74-77); a letter from the Political Agent, Muscat (Major Claude Edward Urquhart Bremner), dated 23 October 1934, concerning the boundaries of Muscat Sultanate (folios 78-80); a Foreign Office note dated 19 December 1934 entitled 'South-Eastern Arabian frontier and United States Oil Concessions' (folios 122-124); papers relating to the Blue Line [a line drawn by British and Turkish officials in 1913 from the Gulf of Uqair to parallel 20 degrees North, in the Rub al-Khali]; and papers concerning tribal affairs (e.g. report by the Political Agent, Bahrain (Lieutenant-Colonel Percy Gordon Loch) entitled 'Tribal situation in the Hinterland of the Trucial Coast', folios 140-146).

The date range gives the covering dates of the correspondence; the earliest document is an enclosure on folios 8-21 containing extracts from Bertram Thomas's report on the Trans-Oman air route reconnaissance of May-June 1927, and the last dated addition to the file is an entry in the notes dated 25 February 1935.