Shipping and Trading in the Persian Gulf: Gray Paul & Co. and Gray Mackenzie & Co., c.1870–1939

Abstract

The economic and political significance of the Persian/Arabian Gulf has increased dramatically since the Second World War. Yet in the midnineteenth century, before the discovery of oil, the region was comparatively unknown and unexplored by Europeans, a backwater in the expanding network of world trade. Why then did Sir William Mackin-non, the founder of the British India Steam Navigation company [BI], in 1862 extend his established service between Calcutta, Bombay and Karachi to Basra and intermediate ports?² What impact did the BI steamers have on the development of the Gulf until 1939? The representatives of the BI at the principal Gulf ports were originally Gray Paul & Co. and Gray Mackenzie & Co., two merchant partnerships who, after an interlude of acting jointly with others as the Mesopotamia Persia Corporation Ltd from 1919 to 1936, formed Gray Mackenzie & Co. Limited.

A version of this chapter was presented to a conference on The Gulf Region during the first half of the Twentieth Century’ at the Centre for Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies, University of Durham, 19–20 April 1985.