IOR/R/15/2/943

The file comprises correspondence relating to the Sheikh of Fujairah’s [Muḥammad bin Ḥamad Āl Sharqi] desire to enter into a treaty agreement with the British Government, thus putting his territory on a footing similar to those of the other Trucial Coast states. The principal correspondents in the file are: the Political Officer on the Trucial Coast (sometimes referred to as the British Agent at Sharjah: H D Michell; Arthur John Wilton); the Political Agent at Bahrain (Cornelius James Pelly); and the Political Resident in the Persian Gulf (Lieutenant-Colonel William Rupert Hay).

The file includes: correspondence between the Political Officer on the Trucial Coast and the Political Agent at Bahrain, relating to the Sheikh’s repeated requests for a treaty with and recognition from the British Government (ff 20-22); the Political Resident’s referral of the matter to Geoffrey Warren Furlonge of the Foreign Office in London (f 18), and Furlonge’s reply that the British Government would be willing to conclude an agreement with the Sheikh of Fujairah, provided the Sultan of Muscat was informed out of courtesy (ff 16-17); further correspondence relating to: the Political Officer’s attempt to make contact with the Sheikh of Fujairah, who, it transpires, cannot be reached by sea without ‘a walk through five or six miles through hostile or at least potentially hostile (Kalba) territory’ (f 2), and an offer received by the Sheikh of Fujairah from the Peter Pan Philatelic Company, to set up postal services in his territory (f 5).