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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. ==Life== H. R. P. Dickson was one of six children of John Dickson, a diplomat in the Levant 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 () 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 () 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.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Bahrain: British political agents )〕 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.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Kuwait: British political agents )〕 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 (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."〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Political Diaries of the Arab World: Persian Gulf 1904-1965 )〕 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''. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「H. R. P. Dickson」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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