IOR/R/15/2/1512

Correspondence, chiefly received from but also sent to, the Director of Customs in Bahrain (Claud Cranbrook Lewis DeGrenier). The majority of the correspondence is official, and relates to miscellaneous trade and customs matters in Bahrain. Aside from general correspondence, memoranda and notices (for example, announcing trade regulations, customs house opening hours), other correspondence in the file includes:

• a letter from the French pearl merchant David Bienenfeld, dated 1928, requesting permission to bring a wireless radio into Bahrain (ff 7-8);
• a letter and statement on rice imports into Bahrain for the period May 1927 to May 1928 (ff 15-16);
• correspondence dated 1929, with a copy of an invoice in German, relating to the import into Bahrain of matches from the Berlin branch of the Handelsvertretung der Udssr in Deutschland (Mercantile Department of the Soviet Government in Germany, ff 23-27);
• statistical tables detailing the numbers and total tonnage of steamers entering and leaving the port of Bahrain for the years 1928 and 1929 (ff 37-39);
• a summary of the numbers of packages landed at various Persian Gulf ports for the months August to November 1931 (f 52) and November 1931 to January 1932 (f 61);
• correspondence dated 1932 relating to changes to the system for khanchia (a customs tax collected on imports), including a petition signed by many of Bahrain’s merchants, objecting to these changes (ff 54-56, f 63);
• details of the British India Steam Navigation Company’s ‘engagements’ at various ports in the Persian Gulf for the months February to June 1932 (expressed in numbers of packages discharged, ff 65-69, f 74);
• a 1932 letter (in Arabic with English translation) from prominent Njdy [Nejdi] merchants in Bahrain, requesting a definition of the territorial limits of Bahrain Port (ff 70-72).