IOR/R/15/2/691

The file comprises correspondence relating to reports about and enquiries made into individuals at Bahrain, or travelling to Bahrain, and allegations of their anti-British activities. The principal correspondents in the file are the Political Agent at Bahrain (Major Reginald George Evelin William Alban), and the Adviser to the Government of Bahrain (Charles Dalrymple Belgrave).

1941 correspondence includes: enquires made by the Political Agent to the Adviser, requesting information or action against individuals alleged to have expressed anti-British views, or listened to Berlin or Bari radio broadcasts (ff 5-8); information from the Middle East Intelligence Centre concerning an individual travelling to Bahrain, who has spent a year in the United States and who is said to have expressed pro-Palestine/Iraq and anti-British sympathies (f 17); the Adviser’s responses to each of these cases (ff 10-12, f 21), providing background information on the named individuals, and advising caution in taking action against any of them without substantive evidence; correspondence from the External Affairs Department at Simla to the Political Resident in the Persian Gulf (Lieutenant-Colonel Charles Geoffrey Prior), dated 14 May 1941, enclosing an extract from Intelligence No. 7 of 1941 for the period 1 to 15 April 1941 (ff 24-25), requesting information on what action has been taken with regard to those points concerning Bahrain, and the Political Agent’s response to these points (ff 28-29).

The last item in the file is a letter from the Political Agent (Edward Birkbeck Wakefield) to Major S Hills, DCRE [Deputy Commander of the Royal Engineers] Bahrain, dated 22 June 1942, informing him that three Iraqi masons currently working on the oil refinery protection plan are said to have expressed anti-British sentiments, and would rather destroy than assist in the protection of the refinery oil tanks (f 35).