| Description | Folder of general correspondence between 1980 and 1989, arranged chronologically and including letters to or from Sir John Glubb, John Godsall FRGS (on the topic of Sir Richard Burton's travels), Hamlyn publishers - contract and correspondence dealing with 'Travellers in Arabia' (1980-81) - Iradj Bagherzade of IB Tauris about the typescript of 'Morocco through Western Eyes', Peter Carrington (?), Muhammad El Mansour, Sir Laurence Grafftey-Smith, Middle East diplomat Henry St John Basil Armitage, Victor El-Kik, Gerald de Gaury, Will Swearingen, UK ambassador to South Yemen, Peter Keegan Williams, Joseph Silmon-Monerri, Peter Mansfield (with a six-page essay by Bidwell, 'The Life of a Sultan', on Sultan Mulai Hassan of Morocco), Albert Hourani, Richard Evans (re: training sessions for the University of Cambridge Extra-Mural Studies, with a copy of Bidwell's MS notes for a lecture on Lebanon and Israel), invitations for receptions at Olympia with the Governor of Riyadh, and at Lancaster House with the Moroccan Minister of Foreign Affairs (both 1986), R.B. Serjeant, Yousuf Shirawi (Bahrain Minister for Cabinet Affairs) and Angela Clarke - both letters discussing the possibility of photocopying the diaries of Charles Belgrave (with a two-page outline for a biography of Belgrave), Mrs Heather Seager, Dorian Fox, Donald J. McCarthy (on Palestine and the UN), former UK ambassador to North Yemen, Julian Walker, Riad Nourallah, Peter Boxall, Peter Frankl, John Baldry, Tim Mackintosh-Smith and G. Rex Smith. Some of the correspondence with Bob Serjeant and Rex Smith relates to editorial matters with 'Arabian Studies', including the serious problems arising with publishing, funding and control of the journal.
There is also a slim file containing correspondence from 1981 relating to Bidwell's essay, 'The Brémond Mission to the Hijaz, 1916-17' which was published in the R.B. Serjeant festschrift, 'Arabian and Islamic Studies' (London: Longman, 1983). These include letters to and from French archivists at the Chateau de Vincennes- with photocopies of original documents about the military mission headed by Colonel Edouard Brémond, as well as correspondence with Mahdi Abdul-Hadi and Paul Tunbridge on the relationship between Brémond, T.E. Lawrence and King Faisal. |