IOR/R/15/2/1612

The file is concerned with orders of flags and related supplies for the Bahrain Agency's flagstaff and for use on the Agency's launch. It therefore contains a range of records concerning orders, deliveries, payments, related correspondence, and internal Agency notes. Most of the supplies are acquired from either the Quetta Arsenal or the Royal Indian Naval Dockyard (Royal Indian Marine prior to 1934) in Bombay. The main officials involved are as follows: the Chief Ordinance Officer, Quetta; the Flag Officer Commanding and Director of the Royal Indian Navy; the Naval (Marine pre 1934) Store Officer, Bombay; and the Controller of Naval Accounts, Bombay. However, F P Baker and Company Limited and Army and Navy Stores Co-operative Society Limited, Bombay, are also utilised for a few articles. There is also some — very concise — correspondence between the Political Agent and the Commandant of the Bahrain State Police regarding changes to the retreat and reveille times.

Also included in the file on folios 113 and 115 is a list of international code signals (Set of Flags 41), a few letters concerning HM sloops flying the Muscat flag instead of the Bahrain flag while hosting Shaikh Hamad [Ḥamad bin ‘Īsá Āl Khalīfah] on folios 51-52 and 55-56, while folio 188 includes a couple of short notes concerning measures to be taken to protect the signal flags from insect damage.

The Farsi content is consists of a single letter (folio 18), dated June 1928, from the Bahrain Persian School — Al-Ittihad — requesting permission to borrow a Union Flag from the Agency. The Arabic language content is similarly minimal, consisting of a single note (folio 151), dated 5 December 1935, from Makki bin Ali Darazi stating the cost of repairing a number of flags for the Agency.