IOR/L/PS/12/3425

Correspondence, memoranda, maps and other papers relating to the establishment of a precise position of the frontier between Persia [Iran], British Baluchistan [in present-day Pakistan], and Afghanistan, arising in response to the proposed transfer to Persian ownership of the Mirjawa [Mīrjāveh] to Duzdap [Zahedan] stretch of the North Western Railway, and territorial claims made by the Khan of Kalat, Mir Mohammad Azam Jan Khan, and the Persian Government. The volume’s correspondents include: Foreign Office and India Office officials; the British Legation at Tehran (Reginald Hervey Hoare; Charles Dodd); the Government of India (Francis Verner Wylie); the Agent to Governor-General and Chief Commissioner for Baluchistan (Alexander Norman Ley Cater); the British Consul for Sīstān and Kain [Ka’īn] (Clive Kirkpatrick Daly).

The correspondence covers:

• The historical basis for negotiations, being surveys carried out in the 1870s, and a demarcation agreement concluded on 24 March 1896 by Colonel Thomas Hungerford Holdich, later referred to as the Holdich Line. Papers include correspondence from the 1930s in response to uncertainties about the precise position of the line (including extracts of the agreement in Persian), and copies of correspondence from 1895-1896 relating to the conclusion of Holdich’s agreement.
• Arrangements in 1932 for a joint British and Persian survey party to map the frontier, with Captain Guy Bomford of the Survey of India leading the British party. The results of Bomford’s survey are summarised in a copy of a secret letter, dated 9 June 1932, with accompanying maps (ff 113-119).