HISTORICAL OVERVIEW
In 1873, in recognition of the increasingly important position occupied by the Gulf in international affairs, the British transferred the overall supervision of their Political Residency at Bushire from the local government of Bombay to the supreme Indian administration - the Government of India at Calcutta. From this date the Resident, along with other British officials both within and outside India, was required to produce regular printed administration reports summarising political, diplomatic and economic developments in the area. These reports continued to be produced without interruption until Indian independence in 1947 when the conduct of British interests in the Gulf was taken on by the Foreign Office in London.
The first reports were compiled jointly by the Resident at Bushire and the British Agent at Muscat. They consisted of general summaries of events, occasional articles on subjects of special interest and detailed statistics on trade. In 1905 the format of the reports was altered to reflect the changing nature of British influence in the area. Through lack of space the trade tables were dropped, although general economic trends were still reported on, and the newly-appointed Agents at Bahrain and Kuwait, as well as the Consuls on the Persian coast, were each asked to submit separate sections. From 1908 the reports ceased to run from April to March as before and were compiled for each calendar year. Reports continued to be produced throughout each of the two World Wars although from 1941 they were not printed and survive only in typescript.
