IOR/R/15/2/1514

Correspondence and other papers relating to purchases for and the maintenance of the Bahrain Political Agency gardens. The file’s correspondents include: the Political Agent (Major Cyril Charles Johnson Barrett; Captain Charles Geoffrey Prior; Lieutenant-Colonel Percy Gordon Loch); representatives of the Manama Municipality (writing in Arabic); horticultural suppliers, including Pestonjee P Pocha & Sons of Poona, Bliss & Company of Karachi, and Imperial Chemical Industries (India) Limited; Nora Loch (née Dalyell), wife of the Political Agent Percy Gordon Loch.

Papers relating to purchases made for a range of supplies (including flower and vegetable seeds, bulbs, plants, garden implements, manure, artificial fertilizer, labour) include advertisements, order forms, bills, receipts, and price lists, and correspondence confirming arrangements for the delivery of items to Bahrain. Papers relating to the maintenance of the garden include correspondence relating to the recruitment of a gardener from India, water and electricity supply, and damage to a garden water tank.

Other items in the file include:

• a price list of flower and vegetable seeds supplied by Sutton & Sons and imported by Bliss & Company of Karachi, received at the Political Agency in September 1930 (ff 58-59);
• an illustrated brochure of Christmas gifts for gardens, produced by Pestonjee P Pocha & Sons, received at the Political Agency in November 1930 (ff 73-80);
• a brochure advertising new year offers for roses, cannas, chrysanthemums, fruit trees and other plants, produced by Pestonjee P Pocha & sons (ff 115-120);
• a price list of Arthur Yates & Company’s Australian flower and vegetable seeds for 1935/1936, supplied by Bliss & Company (f 172);
• correspondence dated 1936/1937 between Nora Loch and the curator at the Royal Botanical Gardens in Edinburgh, Roland Edgar Cooper, concerning seeds and plants for the Agency Garden (ff 226-229, f 232);
• a list of cuttings and seeds planted in the Political Agency garden. The list is divided into sources (the Royal Botanical Gardens in Edinburgh, local sources, the House of the Binns in Scotland, and Egypt), and arranged alphabetically by each plant’s Latin name, with date (presumably the planting date) and notes on its location (ff 183-225);
• garden diary entries for the period 16 October 1935 to 6 January 1936 (ff 238-239) and flower lists for the period 13 October 1936 to 21 March 1937 (ff 242-245). These lists are interspersed amongst correspondence sent by Nora Loch, and are likely to have been compiled by her.