IOR/R/15/2/1558

Correspondence and other papers (order forms, promotional materials, product catalogues, receipts) relating to charitable collections in Bahrain for the Haig Fund (British Legion) from 1933 to 1944. The papers cover subscriptions collected and coordinated by the Political Agency, and from 1938, the sale of poppies in Bahrain, usually undertaken by the wives of British officials. The file’s principal correspondents are: the Political Agent in Bahrain (numerous incumbents); the British Legion (Organising Secretary Captain W G Willcox, and President of the Legion, Sir Frederick Barton Maurice); and Lady Majorie Lepel Belgrave, wife of Charles Dalrymple Belgrave.

The file contains a range of printed materials, published by the British Legion, including:

• leaflets promoting the Legion’s work and its campaigns (ff 9-10, ff 12-15, ff 21-27, f 41, ff 76-79, ff 99-100, ff 117-118);
• an annual report of accounts for the British Legion for 1934 (ff 39-40);
• Haig Fund poppy wreath catalogues (f 98, ff 101-102).

A letter from the Political Agent (Lieutenant-Colonel Percy Gordon Loch) to the Organising Secretary of the British Legion, dated 12 January 1938 (f 91) notes that it had ‘hitherto been regarded as undesirable that Poppies should be sold in Bahrain. Such objections as there may have been no longer [exist]; and I shall hope to receive Poppies from you in future.’