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Establishing the Colony

As increased in importance, the British sought to secure access to and from its most important colony. To start with, they considered the waterless inhospitalible island of at the mouth of the . This was originally occupied in 1798 when Napoleon landed an army in . However, it was Imperial Flag clearly inadequate and soon the British had to look to the near- by mainland for a base. Their choice fell naturally on the superb anchorage at Aden, one of the finest harbours between London and Bombay, and perfect to serve as a coaling station for the Aden 's first 19th-Century steamships.

Aden had once been known as the prosperous "eye of the ," a natural port of call on the Red Sea route to the East and the outlet for the fertile Yemen mountains, 100 miles to the north. But after the Turks had conquered the interior in the 16th Century and Europe's merchants had discovered the Cape route to India, Aden had declined into nothing more than a pirate village Imperial maps of Aden preying on Indian Ocean traffic.

In 1835 an agreement was made with the local Sultan to use Aden as a coaling station. Two years later though, locals were accused of maltreating the survivors of a shipwreck. The Sultan agreed to sell his port to the Bombay government as restitution. However, the Sultan's son and other local chiefs objected when a Naval delegation arrived to finalise transferance. Therefore an expedition was despatched by the East India Company. In 1839 Captain Stafford Haines of the Indian Navy landed from Bombay with 700 men and a couple of Royal Naval sloops in support. At a cost of only 15 casualties he annexed Aden to the . It was the first imperial acquisition of Queen Victoria's reign and one destined to carry some flavour of the Images of Aden Victorian Age far into the 20th Century. It was soon to prove the strategic worth of its location National Archive Aden Images when the main telegraph wires linking Britain to India came ashore in Aden in 1859. This was some 5 years before the main telegraph line linking Britain to India was functioning fully.

Haines, who was appointed political agent in the territory, had a vision of restoring Aden to its former commercial glory. And after the Red Sea route to Europe was reopened in 1869, with the inauguration of the , Aden's trade did indeed increase. Indian merchants moved in to exploit the new commerce. Indian clerks manned the offices of the new shipping agents, and behind the headland known as 'Steamer Point', where the P. & O. vessels took on coal, a whole new Anglo-Indian town arose, full of the characteristic Artwork about Aden wooden bungalows and box-wallahs of the Raj. Administration of Aden But to the Indian officials Aden was primarily a military outpost. They Administrators 1839 - 1967 therefore rejected the possibilities of commercial co-operation with the Aden Dhows Passport Yemen and chose instead to strengthen the defensive barriers between Aden Articles and the interior by extending exclusive treaties of British protection to all the principal rulers of The the South Arabian coast. Jim Herlihy has written an extensive account of the final few years of Aden as a Not all the sheikhs received the British overtures, and many lesser tribal rulers were ignored (a British Colony fact that was to cause troubie for the British in later years, when favours offered to the treaty sheikhs stirred the others to rebellion). But, one way or another, by the end of the century some The Royal Visit - Aden 1954 Bill Wickham gives an account of the visit 30 ill-defined tribal states between the Red Sea and the Sultan of Muscat's territory in Dhofar had of HM Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh been recognized by Britain, thus creating that curious strip of pink on the old schoolroom maps to Aden in April 1954 of Empire known as the Aden . Trial in Perim (1955) Administration of the Colony Bill Wickham explains how unusual it was for the British to become involved in In Aden Britain's chief official was also a Resident appointed by the Viceroy. The Resident's staff judicial issues on the Island of Perim at the end of the Red Sea. was recruited from the Indian Army, or even the Indian Civil Service. Indian soldiers provided ceremonial guards at the coFmolmloiwssioner's compound. Indian Army engineers built their Share http://www.britishempire.co.uk/maproom/aden.htm 1/4 10/14/2016 British Empire: Middle East: Aden characteristic administrative compounds, Indian merchants ran the trade, Indian rupees were the How the Colonial Service helped build standard currency and Indian words and customs laid a veneer of Indian culture on both the Arab Michael Crouch explains the role that and Persian worlds. colonial officers in the Western played in assisting the ancient The Aden Troop was created in 1855 to police the territory which was technically only 80 square Yemeni Jewish population to reach the miles but had a vast hinterland of 9000 miles of desert and mountain known as the Aden newly formed state of Israel. Protectorate. Its chiefs were nominally under the control of a political resident who was also the The Inebriates of the South Arabian military commander. Political Service Michael Crouch recounts the antics of The Aden troop was recruited from members of Scinde Horse and Poona Horse with an Arab some of those political officers who over- Levy to act as guides. It later substituted its horses for camels and it was generally involved in imbibed despite living in an Islamic part of patrolling against bandits. The troop was later used in Somaliland and existed until its the world which looked down on the disbandment in 1927. drinking of alcohol. Political Officer at work, Eastern Aden By the mid 1930s the modern map of Arabia was taking shape and a fitful sort of peace was Protectorate falling upon some of its ancient tribal squabbles. In the , a young political officer, Michael Crouch explains what it was like Harold Ingrams, was able, only a year or two later, to settle 1,000 years of quarrels almost working as an isolated 'Assistant Adviser singlehandedly. In three years of lonely travel and tribal negotiation between 1936 and 1939, Northern Deserts' in the vast and querulous Eastern Aden Protectorate. Ingrams obtained the signatures of over 1,300 local chieftains to a general truce that became known as "Ingrams' Peace." A Journey in the Hadhramaut Mary Reid gives an account of a At the same time, he signed a new series of treaties with the five major rulers of the area, remarkable journey she was privileged to promising them further British help and protection if they, in return, would accept the advice of take in 1963 along the Hadhramaut Wadi from the interior of the Eastern Aden the Governor of Aden in matters concerning the welfare and development of their territories. His Protectorate to the coastline. The journey achievement was significant in two respects. First, because the new treaties were the first to give was all the more remarkable for being Britain any right to interfere in the purely internal affairs of Arabia and, secondly, because they undertaken by a woman in a deeply marked a transfer from the Indian administration's influence to the authority of Whitehall. conservative and traditional part of the Empire.

Increasingly preoccupied by the independence struggle at home, A Game Warden's Permit for a Corpse: The Indian officials no longer had the energy or the interest to spare life and times of a Customs Officer for the Arabian outposts of their empire in 1937. The Colonial Patrick B. Sweeney gives two extracts Office in London assumed responsibility for the Aden from his memoirs as a Customs Officer in Protectorate and made Aden itself a fully-fledged Crown the Middle East and East Africa. One extract explains his role in trying to levy Colony, with the intention of pursuing a "forward policy" of duty on the addictive 'qat' in Aden. The colonial development and defence to safeguard Britain's other extract explains how he tried to interests. In 1940, it divided the Aden Protectorate into a control the flow of duty free goods to non- Mukalla Western Aden Protectorate (WAP) and an Eastern Aden soldiers in the thirsty NAAFIs of Aden. Protectorate (EAP) for administrative purposes. However, the Famine in Arabia Second World War changed the strategic dynamics and plans for the colony. Mary Fletcher experienced famine in Arabia firsthand in the 1940s. She goes on The German advance in North Africa and the Japanese advance in South- to explain Britain's response and in East Asia revealed Britain's strategic weaknesses across the Empire as a particular what happened to a group of whole. The loss of Singapore and the requirement to pull back to defend girls that found themselves being looked after by the Hadhrami Bedouin Legion. Britain showed that it could no longer defend the entire empire. Furthermore, the post war Labour government stuck a dagger through the Journals and Periodicals strategic rationale for Aden by giving India its independence in 1947. If Port of Aden Annual: 1950 that wasn't fatal enough, the Suez debacle a decade later seemed to make Port of Aden Annual: 1952 Aden even more redundant and yet almost by default it would go on to Port of Aden Annual: 1953 Port of Aden Annual: 1954 became Britain's largest overseas military base as oil became the new Port of Aden Annual: 1955 strategic commodity of choice. Port of Aden Annual: 1956 Port of Aden Annual: 1957 The naval units in the Gulf were strengthened, Suggested Reading troops were trained in the Oman Desert, and the Tarim belated "forward policy" of the 1930s became an urgent drive for An Imperial Twilight by Sir Gawain Bell military security, economic development and political reform. But the British were running further than ever behind the clock and, The Parting Years: A British Family and paradoxically, the more they tried to catch up, the more they caused the End of Empire events to accelerate out of their control. by Sheila Bevan The Wind of Morning In its new role grew wealthy and the Indian shopkeepers by Sir Hugh Boustead and Arab landlords of Steamer Point gladly joined the treaty sheikhs of the Protectorate in planning a Federation of that would An Element of Luck: To South Arabia and Beyond unite the town and the tribes to secure the British base and British by Michael Crouch Beihan Yemenis patronage - indefinitely. But the same wealth encouraged a new influx of Arab workers, who made a natural seedbed for revolutionary anti-British nationalist sentiment. Landscape with Arabs by Donald Foster Outsiders jumped quickly on to the nationalist bandwagon, rolling euphorically onwards now in Sheba Revealed - A Posting To Bayhan In the post-Suez atmosphere of Arab triumph and British defeat. In the Yemen, the Imam Ahmed, Follow Share The Yemen the son of Yahya who had challenged British rule in Aden 40 years before, increased his raids on by Nigel Groom http://www.britishempire.co.uk/maproom/aden.htm 2/4