IOR/L/PS/12/3404

Correspondence and reports submitted by British officials in Persia [Iran], along with newspaper cuttings collected from the British and Persian press, relating to the Shah of Persia, Reza Shah Pahlavi. Subjects covered include:

• The Shah’s tours and visits around Persia, including to the towns and cities of Sistan [Zabol], Bushire, Shiraz, Meshed [Mashhad], Kermanshah, Tabriz, Ahwaz [Ahvāz].
• Reports of economic and political conditions in Persia.
• The first Minister of the Persia Court, Teymourtache [Abdolhossein Teymūrtāsh], including his dismissal by the Shah in 1933, and his subsequent trial, imprisonment and death.
• Speculation over the health of the Shah.
• Treatment of the Bakhtiari tribes by the Shah and his Government.
• The Shah’s programme of modernisation in Persia, including the enforcement of European hats for men and unveiling of women, military reforms, and schemes for urban development.
• A rebellion and massacre at the Goharshad shrine in Meshed in July 1935, provoked by a backlash against the Shah’s modernising tendencies. Papers include a secret report written by the British Consul-General for Khorasan and Sistan, Major Clive Kirkpatrick Daly (ff 218-222).

Principal correspondents in the file include: the British Legation at Tehran (Reginald Hervey Hoare; Hughe Montgomery Knatchbull-Hugessen; Nevile Montagu Butler); the Chargé d’Affaires at Tehran (Victor Alexander Louis Mallet); the British Consul-General for Khorasan and Sistan (Daly).

Newspaper cuttings from the Persian press are written in French.