HENDERSON (Edward).
This Strange Eventful History: Memoirs of Earlier Days in the UAE and Oman.
EARLY OIL EXPLORATION IN THE UAE
An important account of early oil exploration in the United Arab Emirates and Oman. Edward Henderson (1917-1995) first travelled to the Gulf in the service of Petroleum Development Trucial Coast and commenced to prospect for oil. His valuable memoir covers the years 1948-56 and therefore documents the period directly preceding the discovery of commercial quantities of petroleum. In doing so, it captures the UAE before the development and riches of its modern history.
Having gained strong relationships with ruling families across the Arabian Gulf, Henderson was seconded to the British foreign service in 1956, receiving his first appointment as Political Officer, Abu Dhabi in 1959. He was later posted to Jerusalem and Bahrain, and became Britain’s first Ambassador to Qatar. He retired from the foreign service in 1974 and permanently settled in Abu Dhabi in 1976, at the personal request of H.H. Sheikh Zayed Al-Nahyan.
