IOR/L/PS/10/38

The file comprises copies of correspondence, papers and maps relating to the British Government’s telegraph station and the Persian Government’s customs house on the island of Henjam [Jazīreh-ye Hengām], questions of Persian sovereignty over the island, and the status of the island’s Arab inhabitants. The volume’s principal correspondents are: the Political Resident in the Persian Gulf (Major Percy Zachariah Cox); the British Ambassador (or Chargé d’Affaires) at Tehran (Sir Arthur Henry Hardinge; Sir Evelyn Mountstuart Grant Duff); the Assistant Resident and British Consul at Bandar-e ʻAbbās (Lieutenant William Henry Irvine Shakespear); the Senior Naval Officer of the Persian Gulf Division, also Commanding Officer of HMS Fox (Captain John Bridges Eustace).

A large portion of the correspondence concerns British officials’ reaction to the Persian Government’s construction of a customs house on Henjam (itself a response to the British Government’s revival of their telegraph office on the island):

• British officials’ proposals to send Indian troops to keep the peace on the island (ff 221-225);
• a report of a visit to Henjam by Cox and Shakespear, June 1905, with an accompanying map of the island (ff 189-193, f 200);
• fresh water supplies at Henjam, and discussion amongst British officials over whether the Persians should be refused access to the island’s water supply;
• copies of correspondence and a tracing of a sketch, dated 1868, relating to the original agreement between the Persian and British Governments for a telegraph cable and station at Angaum [Jazīreh-ye Hengām], enclosed as part of an attempt to establish the extent of the original telegraph concession on the island, covering the years 1868 to 1880 (ff 133-136);
• use of flagstaffs on the island, specifically Persian flagstaffs as a statement of sovereignty, and the proposal for a British flagstaff as part of a Lloyd’s Signal Station;
• negotiations between the British Government and Persian Government (represented by Mushir-ed-Dowleh) on the acknowledgement and extent of a British concession at Henjam;
• correspondence and reports relating to a survey undertaken by the Royal Navy (HMS Fox) of the northern tip of Henjam in April 1906, in order to ascertain the extent and boundary of the area required for the British telegraph office concession (ff 2-16).

The file also covers the status of Henjam’s Arab inhabitants, including:

• claims made by Shaikh Ahmed bin Abeid of Henjam to be under the protection of Shaikh Mookhdoom [Shaikh Maktūm bin Hashar Āl Maktūm] of Dubai, and to have been settled on the islands by ancestors of the Sultan of Maskat [Muscat] (f 233, f 138, f 92);
• British officials’ procrastination in confirming their acceptance of Persian sovereignty over Henjam to the island’s Arab inhabitants, amid concerns of potentially violent confrontations between Henjam’s Persians and Arabs once Britain’s acceptance of Persian sovereignty is confirmed (f 124, ff 110-112);
• proposals made by Cox to resettle the Arabs of Henjam at Basidu [Bāsa‘īdū], rejected by Government officials (ff 99-103).