H. R. P. Dickson
Encyclopedia
Lieutenant Colonel Harold Richard Patrick Dickson (4 February 1881 – 14 June 1959) was a British
colonial administrator in the Middle East
from the 1920s until the 1940s, and author of several books on Kuwait
.
from 1872–1906, and Edith Wills. He was born in Beirut
, Lebanon
and was taken at a young age to Damascus
, Syria
where his father was Consul
. There his mother's milk failed and Shaikh Mijwal al Mazrab, the husband of Lady Jane Digby
, provided the young child with a wet nurse
from the 'Anizah tribe. Islamic law
lays out the permanent family-like relationships
that are created by wet nursing, and this "blood affinity" between Dickson and the 'Anizah meant he was treated as a member of the tribe. He stated that this blood tie 'in later life has been of assistance to me in my dealings with the Badawin [bedouin] of the high desert and around Kuwait'. Following the death of Lady Jane Digby, the Dickson family rented her house in Damascus, and Dickson recalled that he 'spent my childhood days rambling about the lovely garden that had once been [her] pride and happiness.'.
Dickson met his wife Dame
Violet Dickson
(1896 – 1991) in Marseilles, France
, shortly after the end of World War I
, where she was working in a bank. She travelled out to meet him in India
, where he was stationed and where they were married. Shortly afterwards he was posted to Iraq
.
Dickson served as British Political Agent
in Bahrain
from 1919-1920. He also served in Persia (present-day Iran
). In 1929 he was appointed British Political Agent to Kuwait, and served in this role until 1936. He briefly held this role again in 1941.
Some of his reports have been published in Political Diaries of the Arab World: Persian Gulf 1904-1965. The publishers' description of this volume reads in part: "Perhaps the most idiosyncratic [contributor to the volume] was Lt. Col. H. R. P. Dickson who wrote voluminously in the 1920s and 1930s on his trips into the Saudi
hinterland, his meetings with rulers and all the machinations and gossip that sometimes go into political intelligence-gathering."
After retiring from his political career he worked for the Kuwait Oil Company, for which company he had been the first Chief Local Representative in Kuwait.
Dickson had a detailed knowledge of bedouin
life and customs, and produced two books which are considered valuable chronicles of a now-threatened way of life. These books, The Arab of the Desert: A Glimpse into Badawin Life in Kuwait and Sa'udi Arabia, first published in 1949, and Kuwait and her Neighbours, first published in 1956, have been described as 'monumental', and are now sought-after collector's items.
Dickson had a son Saud (who died in May 2005), and a daughter Zahra Freeth
(née Dickson), who is also an author on Middle Eastern topics and who co-edited and abridged the third edition of The Arab of the Desert.
The Catalogue for the Harold Dickson Collection is available online as a pdf file at
http://www.sant.ox.ac.uk/mec/MEChandlists/GB165-0085-HRP-Dickson-Collection.pdf
A few papers are held by the Faculty of Oriental Studies, Cambridge University (FOS reference: BT C/8 and BT C/22).
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
colonial administrator in the Middle East
Middle East
The Middle East is a region that encompasses Western Asia and Northern Africa. It is often used as a synonym for Near East, in opposition to Far East...
from the 1920s until the 1940s, and author of several books on Kuwait
Kuwait
The State of Kuwait is a sovereign Arab state situated in the north-east of the Arabian Peninsula in Western Asia. It is bordered by Saudi Arabia to the south at Khafji, and Iraq to the north at Basra. It lies on the north-western shore of the Persian Gulf. The name Kuwait is derived from the...
.
Life
H. R. P. Dickson was one of six children of John Dickson, a diplomat in the LevantLevant
The Levant or ) is the geographic region and culture zone of the "eastern Mediterranean littoral between Anatolia and Egypt" . The Levant includes most of modern Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Israel, the Palestinian territories, and sometimes parts of Turkey and Iraq, and corresponds roughly to the...
from 1872–1906, and Edith Wills. He was born in Beirut
Beirut
Beirut is the capital and largest city of Lebanon, with a population ranging from 1 million to more than 2 million . Located on a peninsula at the midpoint of Lebanon's Mediterranean coastline, it serves as the country's largest and main seaport, and also forms the Beirut Metropolitan...
, Lebanon
Lebanon
Lebanon , officially the Republic of LebanonRepublic of Lebanon is the most common term used by Lebanese government agencies. The term Lebanese Republic, a literal translation of the official Arabic and French names that is not used in today's world. Arabic is the most common language spoken among...
and was taken at a young age to Damascus
Damascus
Damascus , commonly known in Syria as Al Sham , and as the City of Jasmine , is the capital and the second largest city of Syria after Aleppo, both are part of the country's 14 governorates. In addition to being one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world, Damascus is a major...
, Syria
Syria
Syria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the West, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south, and Israel to the southwest....
where his father was Consul
Consul
Consul was the highest elected office of the Roman Republic and an appointive office under the Empire. The title was also used in other city states and also revived in modern states, notably in the First French Republic...
. There his mother's milk failed and Shaikh Mijwal al Mazrab, the husband of Lady Jane Digby
Lady Jane Digby
Jane Elizabeth Digby, Lady Ellenborough was an English aristocrat who lived a scandalous life of romantic adventure, spanning decades and two continents. She had four husbands and many lovers, including King Ludwig I of Bavaria, his son King Otto of Greece, statesman Felix Schwarzenberg, and an...
, provided the young child with a wet nurse
Wet nurse
A wet nurse is a woman who is used to breast feed and care for another's child. Wet nurses are used when the mother is unable or chooses not to nurse the child herself. Wet-nursed children may be known as "milk-siblings", and in some cultures the families are linked by a special relationship of...
from the 'Anizah tribe. Islamic law
Sharia
Sharia law, is the moral code and religious law of Islam. Sharia is derived from two primary sources of Islamic law: the precepts set forth in the Quran, and the example set by the Islamic prophet Muhammad in the Sunnah. Fiqh jurisprudence interprets and extends the application of sharia to...
lays out the permanent family-like relationships
Rada (fiqh)
Radāʿ or ridāʿa is a technical term from Islamic jurisprudence meaning "the suckling which produces the legal impediment to marriage of foster-kinship". The term derives from the infinitive noun of the Arabic word radiʿa or radaʿa...
that are created by wet nursing, and this "blood affinity" between Dickson and the 'Anizah meant he was treated as a member of the tribe. He stated that this blood tie 'in later life has been of assistance to me in my dealings with the Badawin [bedouin] of the high desert and around Kuwait'. Following the death of Lady Jane Digby, the Dickson family rented her house in Damascus, and Dickson recalled that he 'spent my childhood days rambling about the lovely garden that had once been [her] pride and happiness.'.
Dickson met his wife Dame
Dame (title)
The title of Dame is the female equivalent of the honour of knighthood in the British honours system . It is also the equivalent form address to 'Sir' for a knight...
Violet Dickson
Violet Dickson
Dame Violet Penelope Dickson, DBE was the wife of British colonial administrator H. R. P. Dickson. She lived in Kuwait for 61 years, half of them as a widow, and published several books on the country...
(1896 – 1991) in Marseilles, France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
, shortly after the end of World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
, where she was working in a bank. She travelled out to meet him in India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
, where he was stationed and where they were married. Shortly afterwards he was posted to Iraq
Iraq
Iraq ; officially the Republic of Iraq is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert....
.
Dickson served as British Political Agent
Political Resident
In the British Empire a Political Resident or Political Agent was an official diplomatic position involving both consular duties and liaison function....
in Bahrain
Bahrain
' , officially the Kingdom of Bahrain , is a small island state near the western shores of the Persian Gulf. It is ruled by the Al Khalifa royal family. The population in 2010 stood at 1,214,705, including 235,108 non-nationals. Formerly an emirate, Bahrain was declared a kingdom in 2002.Bahrain is...
from 1919-1920. He also served in Persia (present-day Iran
Iran
Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...
). In 1929 he was appointed British Political Agent to Kuwait, and served in this role until 1936. He briefly held this role again in 1941.
Some of his reports have been published in Political Diaries of the Arab World: Persian Gulf 1904-1965. The publishers' description of this volume reads in part: "Perhaps the most idiosyncratic [contributor to the volume] was Lt. Col. H. R. P. Dickson who wrote voluminously in the 1920s and 1930s on his trips into the Saudi
Saudi Arabia
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia , commonly known in British English as Saudi Arabia and in Arabic as as-Sa‘ūdiyyah , is the largest state in Western Asia by land area, constituting the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula, and the second-largest in the Arab World...
hinterland, his meetings with rulers and all the machinations and gossip that sometimes go into political intelligence-gathering."
After retiring from his political career he worked for the Kuwait Oil Company, for which company he had been the first Chief Local Representative in Kuwait.
Dickson had a detailed knowledge of bedouin
Bedouin
The Bedouin are a part of a predominantly desert-dwelling Arab ethnic group traditionally divided into tribes or clans, known in Arabic as ..-Etymology:...
life and customs, and produced two books which are considered valuable chronicles of a now-threatened way of life. These books, The Arab of the Desert: A Glimpse into Badawin Life in Kuwait and Sa'udi Arabia, first published in 1949, and Kuwait and her Neighbours, first published in 1956, have been described as 'monumental', and are now sought-after collector's items.
Dickson had a son Saud (who died in May 2005), and a daughter Zahra Freeth
Zahra Freeth
Zahra Dickson Freeth is a British author, the daughter of H. R. P. Dickson and Dame Violet Dickson , who has written several books on the Middle East....
(née Dickson), who is also an author on Middle Eastern topics and who co-edited and abridged the third edition of The Arab of the Desert.
The Dickson House Cultural Centre, Kuwait City
The British Political Agency in Kuwait was based in a house that had been built in 1870 for a Kuwaiti merchant. The Dicksons moved in to the house in 1929, and the building served as the British political agency until 1935. Dickson lived there until his death in 1959 and Dame Violet until the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990, when she was evacuated to Britain. Sadly, Dame Violet died before the liberation of Kuwait. The house was ransacked during the invasion, but has since been restored by the Kuwaiti National Council for Culture, Arts and Letters, and is now a tourist attraction. It is one of few surviving examples of nineteenth century Kuwaiti architecture, with thirty rooms on two floors.H. R. P. Dickson archive
Papers by and relating to H. R. P. Dickson are held at the Middle East Centre Archive, St Antony's College, Oxford University (MECA reference: GB165-0085) web address http://www.sant.ox.ac.uk/mec/meca.shtmlThe Catalogue for the Harold Dickson Collection is available online as a pdf file at
http://www.sant.ox.ac.uk/mec/MEChandlists/GB165-0085-HRP-Dickson-Collection.pdf
A few papers are held by the Faculty of Oriental Studies, Cambridge University (FOS reference: BT C/8 and BT C/22).
Books and articles by H. R. P. Dickson
- "Migration and methods of bird snaring in North East Arabia" Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society 40, 740-744 (1939)
- The Arab of the Desert: A Glimpse into Badawin Life in Kuwait and Sa'udi Arabia London: George Allen & Unwin (1949)
- Kuwait and her Neighbours London: George Allen & Unwin (1956)
- "The tent and its furnishing" in Peoples and Cultures of the Middle East (Editor: A. Shiloh) New York: Random House (1969) 136-156
Other sources
- Dickson, Violet (1971) Forty Years in Kuwait London: George Allen & Unwin
- Jennings, M. C., (1989) "Kuwait 50 years ago: Colonel H. R. P. Dickson's Game Register" Phoenix 6, 4-5
- Al Rashoud, Claudia Farkas (1997) Dame Violet Dickson: "Umm Saud's" fascinating life in Kuwait from 1929-1990 Kuwait: al-Alfain Printing Press
- Obituary of Dame Violet Dickson in Oil and Gas Journal, Vol 89(3), Jan 21, 1991
- Middle East Centre Archive, St Antony's College, Oxford University
- Interview with Dame Violet Dickson
- Article about Zahra Dickson Freeth, mentioning H. R. P. and Dame Violet Dickson
- List of Political Agents in Kuwait
- List of Political Agents in Bahrain
- Official information about the Dickson House (scroll down the page)
- Account of a visit to the Dickson House in Kuwait