IOR/L/PS/10/86/1

The first part of the volume (folios 95 to 275) contains correspondence and notes about British government expenditure on the consular establishment at the Red Sea port city of Hodeidah in Yemen. The correspondents are senior officials at the Foreign Office, the India Office and the Treasury in London and at the Foreign Department of the Government of India in Calcutta and Simla [Shimla], the Consul and Vice-Consul at Hodeidah, and the British Ambassador to the Court of the Sublime Porte of the Ottoman Empire at Constantinople. They discuss the pay and allowances of Dr G A Richardson the Vice-Consul at Hodeidah, and a proposal to increase his office allowance allocation, so that he might engage extra office assistance, in particular a competent dragoman (an official interpreter and translator) by offering a higher rate of personal allowance. There is also extensive correspondence about how the increased costs of the Hodeidah Vice-Consulate are to be divided between the Imperial Government in London and the Government of India. Included in the correspondence are representations made by the British Ambassador to Constantinople in 1907 about the importance of adequately funding the vital work of the Vice -Consulate in supporting trade and commerce; a statistical table showing the total annual costs of maintaining the Hodeidah Vice-Consulate in the years from 1887 to 1905; and an account of the settlement of a compensation claim in 1905 by the Vice-Consul, arising out of a piracy case.