Iraq

The country of Iraq was previously part of the area known as Mesopotamia. It was also known as Turkish Arabia.

Iraq's modern borders were created in 1920 by a League of Nations mandate and Iraq was placed under British control, known as the British Mandate of Mesopotamia. A monarchy was established in 1921 and the Kingdom of Iraq gained independence from Britain in 1932.

The capital is Baghdad.

Also see

• Mesopotamia Campaign 1914-1918
• Indian Divisions in Mesopotamia
• Post and Telegraphs Department for information about the Indo-European Telegraph

Records

• See General Register Office for births, marriages and deaths.
• London Metropolitan Archives has a catalogue reference DL/E/E/065/MS11221 Certificates and Copy Certificates of Marriages at St. Peter's Church, Basra. 1922-8
• The Lambeth Palace Library, London, the principal repository of the documentary history of the Church of England, holds some limited overseas registers and transcripts including "Near East: St Peter's Bazra, 1943-1966 (MSS.2505-7, 2675); Mesopotamia, (now Iraq) 1883-1966 (MSS.2669-76); St George's Baghdad (MS.3979)".
• The BACSA Archive at the British Library Mss F370 has item 825 Iraq, content not known but possibly about the cemeteries rather than records.
  • Baghdad, civil cemetery: 1886-1980
  • Abadan, St Christopher's
  • Habbaniya
  • Kut
• A search for Baghdad in the online Catalogue of the Society of Genealogists, London gives the following entry:
  • Baghdad (Civil cemetery) : MIs: Asia monumental inscriptions, vol. 1 by Andrew Peake (8 pages, typescript)

The FamilySearch Library catalogue has an entry for this typescript. However it appears to be only available at the Library in Salt Lake City, (and is noted to be unavailable at 2020/05). The book has also been digitised but shows as "Protected" status ("Due to copyright restrictions, this book cannot be viewed online"), catalogue entry FamilySearch Digital Library. The Digital Library is Searchable.

A search for Persian Gulf in the SoG catalogue includes the following entry:

• Persian Gulf (& surrounds) : MIs: An Indian miscellany, consisting of genealogical & biographical notes & lists of monumental inscriptions by H Bullock and H K Percy-Smith 1941-44

• Baghdad (North Gate) War Cemetery is under the control of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission which has a searchable database.
• Baghdad Burials at Hinaidi RAF Cemetery (now Ma'Asker Al Raschid RAF Cemetery): Searchable Database of 299 Graves from 1921-1937. 196 of the 299 graves are for Royal Air Force casualties from eight RAF squadrons. There are also 71 graves for British Army personnel, 2 Royal Navy and 30 civilian. There are additional internal links about the cemetery. 6 Squadron, Books & Early Military Aviation website.
• British Library India Office Records catalogue entry Factory Records: Persia and the Persian Gulf IOR/G/29 1620-1822
• British Library India Office Records catalogue entry Records of the British Residency and Agencies in the Persian Gulf IOR/R/15 1763-1951. Although there were Agencies at Basra ( Basrah) and Baghdad, there are no records in this series for these Agencies.
• Finding Aid: British Colonial Policy and Intelligence Files on Asia and the Middle East, c. 1880-1950 IDC Publishers. Original records held in the British Library India Office Records. Includes a section on Iraq.
• A Rootsweb India Mailing List post suggested searching the National Archives database, as "some very surprising information on my grandparents" was found, her father having been born in Baghdad in 1895.

External links

• Mesopotamia Wikipedia
• Iraq Wikipedia
• British Mandate of Mesopotamia 1920-1932 Wikipedia
• "The Raj Reconsidered: British India’s Informal Empire and Spheres of Influence in Asia and Africa" by James Onley Asian Affairs Volume XL, no. I, March 2009 Pdf.

Onley wrote the book The Arabian frontier of the British Raj: merchants, rulers, and the British in the nineteenth-century Gulf by James Onley 2007 Sample pages Google Books including page 118 showing in a table the Persian Gulf Division of the Bombay Postal Circle (Bombay GPO) and the Sindh Postal Circle (Karachi GPO), in Basrah and Baghdad.

• "Scientific Instrument with a Story to Tell" by John Packer Bulletin of the Scientific Instruments Society No. 92 (2007), pages 17-18, now archived.

Briefly mentions the Indo-European Telegraph Department connecting India with Baghdad, in the early 1860’s, the route being Karachi, Gwadur (Baluchistan), Fao (now Fawr, Iraq), Basra, Baghdad, (then part of greater Turkey), and from there to Europe.

• This link (Sothebys) gives details of the papers and career of Sir Harford Jones. At the age of 19, Jones was posted to Basra in the service of the East India Company, to be assistant factor. He remained in the post for a decade (1783-1794). He was Resident in Baghdad from 1798 to 1804.
• Iraq Britishempire.co.uk
• The British in Mesopotamia stanford.edu, now archived.
• Old Magazine Articles: Iraq 1920s oldmagazinearticles.com, now archived.
• The British in Mesopotamia/Iraq casahistoria.net, now archived.
• "Lost British graveyard found in Iraq" at Al Amara, built for those in the Mesopotamian Expeditionary Force, by the banks of the Tigris river. 18 April 2003 BBC News.
• "Echoes of the Past", a Baghdad graveyard Guardian.co.uk 22 June 2004, now archived.
• Grandpa’s Journal, now archived. Harry James Goulter Pearman was with the Army Audit Staff in Mesopotamia. A sample page, now archived, is headed Sunday 18 December 1921

Most of the diary entries are for 1921. It is difficult for some/all browsers to navigate this website, see hints below if you want to read additional entries.

Historical books online

• [Selections from the Records of the Bombay Government. New series. no. 43] Memoirs by Commander James Felix Jones I.N: steam-trip to the North of Baghdad in April 1846 with notes on various objects of interest en route : journey for the purpose of determining the tract of the ancient Nahrwan canal undertaken in April 1848 with a glance at the past history of the territory of the Nahrwan : journey to the frontier of Turkey and Persia through a part of Kurdistan : researches in the vicinity of the Median Wall of Xenophon and along the old course of the River Tigris and discovery of the site of the ancient Opis : memoir on the province of Baghdad : notes on the topography of Ninevah and the other cities of Assyria and on the general geography of the country between the Tigris and the upper Zab founded upon a trigonometrical survey made in the year 1852. Published 1857.

Archive.org version lacks title page, and including "Memoir on the Province of Baghdad. 1855". Includes coloured images and is a mirror from Wellcome Library where pages are rotatable. Also available Qatar National Library Read online or download. There may be difficulty opening the file. Also available Archive.org, mirror from Granth Sanjeevani, Asiatic Society of Mumbai.

There was a 1998 facsimile re-publication with the title Memoirs of Baghdad, Kurdistan & Turkish Arabia 1857 by J. F Jones , Indian Navy.

• Oriental Memories of a German Diplomatist by Friedrich Rosen, 1930 Archive.org, Digital Library of India Collection. The author was born 1856. Friedrich Rosen Wikipedia.
• A Handbook of Mesopotamia by Admiralty War Staff Intelligence Division. 1916-1917. In four volumes, (plus a supplementary volume), the first contained matters of a general nature, the other volumes contain a description of the river and land routes. Maps were issued separately.
  • Hathi Trust Digital Library: Volume I: General August 1916. Volume III: Central Mesopotamia with Southern Kurdistan and the Syrian Desert January 1917. Volume IV: Northern Mesopotamia and Central Kurdistan April 1917
  • Qatar Digital Library: Volume I, 2nd edition November 1918. Volume II: Irak, the Lower Karun and Luristan (C.B. 294) May 1917. Volume III January 1917. Supplement. Corrections and additions to Volume III (C.B. 295A) June 1918. Volume IV April 1917. Maps are included.
  • Library of Congress. Links toVolume I 2nd edition November 1918. Volume II Provisional Issue May 1917. Volume III January 1917. Volume IV April 1917. Volumes III and IV include additions and corrections. Direct links are V1, V2, V3, V4
  • A "Gazetteer of Towns" is included in Volumes II, III, and IV.
    • Volume II: Irak, the Lower Karun and Luristan" "Gazetteer of Towns" page 371. Qatar Digital Library
    • Volume III: Central Mesopotamia with Southern Kurdistan and the Syrian Desert "Gazetteer of Towns", page 350. Hathi Trust Digital Library.
    • Volume IV: Northern Mesopotamia and Central Kurdistan "Gazetteer of Towns", page 418. Hathi Trust Digital Library.
  • Maps. National Library of Australia. Map of City of Baghdad

Outline Map showing Routes: Volume II, Outline Map showing Routes: Volume III, Outline Map showing Routes: Volume IV

• Military Report on Iraq. A series of ten reports on Iraq after the First World War
  • Military Report on Mesopotamia (Iraq): Area 1 (Northern Jazirah) (Provisional) Compiled by the General Staff, British Forces in Iraq. 1st edition 1922. IOR/L/MIL/17/15/42. Qatar Digital Library
  • Military Report on Iraq: Area 2 (Upper Euphrates) Compiled by the General Staff, British Forces in Iraq. 1924 IOR/L/MIL/17/15/43. Qatar Digital Library
  • Military Report on Iraq (Area 6 Lower Euphrates) Compiled by the General Staff, British Forces in Iraq. 1922 IOR/L/MIL/17/15/44. Qatar Digital Library
  • Military report on Mesopotamia (Iraq) Area 8 (Western Kurdistan) (Provisional) Compiled by the General Staff, British Forces in Iraq. 1923 IOR/L/MIL/17/15/45. Qatar Digital Library
  • Military report on Iraq. Area 9 (Central Kurdistan) compiled and published by the Air Ministry in London, August of 1929. IOR/L/MIL/17/15/46. Qatar Digital Library

  Three maps from Area 9 National Library of Australia.

  Military report on Iraq. Area 7 Tigris (1923) is available at the British Library in a different series, catalogue entry IOR/L/PS/20/C202/4. Other areas, unknown if all were produced [Area 3. Upper Tigris], [Area 4. Middle Euphrates], [Area 5. Middle Tigris] Area 10. Southern Kurdistan.

• Military Report on Iraq - Volume II (Routes) by Air Ministry 1936 IOR/L/MIL/17/15/47. Qatar Digital Library

Volume I, General by [Great Britain] Air Ministry 1936 is available at the British Library, catalogue entry (different series) IOR/L/PS/20/C253/1.

• Iraq and the Persian Gulf. B.R. 524 (Restricted) Geographical Handbook Series September 1944 by [Great Britain] Naval Intelligence Division. Archive.org
• Railways in Western Asia by Lieutenant-Colonel H Picot Indian Army (Retired). Published by the Central Asian Society, London 1904 Archive.org.
• To Mesopotamia and Kurdistan in disguise : with historical notices of the Kurdish tribes and the Chaldeans of Kurdistan by E B Soane c 1914 Archive.org.
• The Letters of Gertrude Bell published 1927. Archive.org, Digital Library of India Collection.Volume I, Volume II. Mainly letters sent to her family. Volume II is in respect of her time in Baghdad 1917-1926.
  • Gertrude Bell Archives Newcastle University, UK. Includes transcribed letters and diaries.
• Twin Rivers, a Brief History of Iraq from the Earliest Times to the Present Day by Seton Lloyd 1943. Archive.org mirror version from Digital Library of India.
• Captain Shakespear : a Portrait by H V F Winstone 1976. William Henry Irvine Shakespear born Multan 29 October 1878, joined the Political Department in India and in 1904 was posted to the Persian port of Bandar Abbas, the youngest Consul in the Indian administration. He was killed 24 January 1915, at which time he was Political Officer on Special Duties in Arabia. Archive.org Books to Borrow/Lending Library.
• Kurds Turks and Arabs: Politics, Travel and Research in North-Eastern Iraq 1919-1925 by C J Edmonds (Cecil John) 1957 Archive.org. Note, text is presented “on its side”, so viewing may be difficult on a fixed screen. C J Edmonds was also the author of East and West of Zagros: Travel, War and Politics in Persia and Iraq, 1913-1921 edited, and with an introduction by Yann Richard 2010 Available at the British Library UIN: BLL01015362692 . Sample pages, Google Books. Edmonds, C. J iranicaonline.org
• Arabian Adventures : Ten years of joyful service by John Glubb (Sir John Bagot Glubb) 1978. The period from 1920, when he was posted to Iraq as a member of the Royal Engineers. Archive.org Books to Borrow/Lending Library. John Bagot Glubb Wikipedia.
• A History of Iraq by Charles Tripp. 1st edition, 2000; 3rd edition 2007, (2nd edition 2002), 2nd file 2007 Archive.org Books to Borrow/Lending Library.
• The Arabian Frontier Of The British Raj: Merchants, Rulers, And The British In The Nineteenth Century Gulf by James Onley 2007. Archive.org.

Article "The Raj Reconsidered: British India’s Informal Empire and Spheres of Influence in Asia and Africa" by James Onley. Asian Affairs, vol. XL, no. I, March 2009 socialsciences.exeter.ac.uk.

• Spies in Arabia: The Great War and the Cultural Foundations of Britain's Covert Empire in the Middle East by Priya Satia 2008. Archive.org.