IOR/L/PS/10/154

The file concerns negotiations over the rights of British firms to exploit Hormuz oxide (red oxide of iron) mined on the island of Hormuz. The concession to mine the red oxide there was held, and later lost by Haji Agha Mohamed, Muin-ut-Tujjar (also spelled Mouin and Moin) [Haji Agha Muhammad, Mu‘in ul-Tujjār]. The negotiations were complicated by the involvement of a German syndicate, which also wanted to obtain control of the business. The file covers the contractual, legal, and diplomatic progress of the negotiations in detail.

The papers consist of correspondence from senior officials at the Foreign Office and the India Office, particularly the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (Sir Edward Grey) and the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (Louis du Pan Mallet); the Board of Trade; the British Minister at Tehran (Sir Charles Murray Marling, later Sir George Barclay, and Sir Walter Beaupré Townley) and the three British firms involved in the negotiations: Ellinger and Company, Frank C Strick and Company, and Andrew Weir and Company.

The French language content of the file is limited to a single letter on folio 41.

The volume includes a divider which gives the subject, the year the subject file was opened, the subject heading, and a list of correspondence references contained by year. This is placed at the back of the correspondence.