Bushire

Bushire is a port towards the head of the Gulf. The East India Company transferred its headquarters in the Gulf from Bandar Abbas to Bushire around 1770, and established a Political Residency there with responsibility for the maintenance of British interests in the whole Gulf area. The first residency building on the seafront was destroyed by British gunfire during the 1856-7 conflict and was rebuilt in conventional Anglo-Indian style soon afterwards. The first British Post Office was installed in its grounds in 1864. Concurrently, the resident acquired some land at Sabzabad, on higher ground about five miles south of Bushire, and built on it a spacious summer residence. The heat, even here, nevertheless drove residents and their families to Shiraz for much of the summer. In mid-century, Sabzabad became the residents’ permanent home and office, although the town residency, with its own jetty, and the Church and Post Office, remained in some use. In 1878, the resident was granted an exequatur to act additionally as consul-general for the Fars region.

The residency moved from Bushire to Bahrain in 1946. By then it occupied, besides the town and Sabzabad sites, two other sites, both in the district called Naidi on the road south to Sabzabad. One was called the British Government lands, or PWD lands, about 35 acres acquired in 1912, containing the executive engineer’s and his assistant’s houses, garages and PWD workshops. The other, much smaller, originally housed the secretary to the resident and later became the consulate, and was vacated in 1952. The town and Sabzabad sites were sold to the Persian government in the late 1940s, and the other two in 1959 to the governor of Bushire, representing the Imperial Iranian government.

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Plan of Bushire, 1923.

Isfahan

In central Iran, about mid-way between Teheran and Shiraz in the south. The consulate was opened in 1891 and premises leased in the parish known as Muhammed Husein Bey [?sp]. This same building was bought in 1896 for about £1,500. The drawing room was extended in 1906 and more work was undertaken in the mid-1920s.  The post closed in 1934 and the building was sold, with difficulty, in 1935 to Mirza Haidar Aliu Khan Imami.

The post was subsequently re-opened in leased premises[?when] but later the Isfahan and Shiraz consular districts were amalgamated and Isfahan was put on a care and maintenance basis for visitors from Shiraz.

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Survey drawing of compound, 1920.

Meshed

In the north-east, close to the Turkmenistan border. The consulate was established in 1889. Curzon passed through Meshed a few months later and was disparaging about the leased premises that was all that the consul had managed to obtain. In a despatch to The Times, he called for the consul-general to be treated ‘in a style and in quarters better fitted to represent to the native mind the prestige of a great and wealthy power.’

A site of over eight acres was, accordingly, bought in 1892 by the Government of India: it was laid out as a compound with several houses, full ancillaries and a large garden, and the first set of buildings was completed in 1893. Other buildings followed in 1899 and extra land was obtained in 1905 and 1906 for native quarters. By 1948 the entire compound, whose entrance was on Pah Lavi Road, was the best vegetated area in Meshed and surrounded by a wall fourteen feet high. The post was closed in 1952. The British Council re-opened in part of the compound in 1958 and the [?part of it which it did not need was sold in ?]. The Council had to leave in 1979 and [?what happened to the BC premises?]

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Plan of compound, ? date.