Captain William Henry Irvine Shakespear (29 October 1878 – 24 January 1915), was a British

civil servant The civil service is a collective term for a sector of government composed mainly of career civil servants hired on professional merit rather than appointed or elected, whose institutional tenure typically survives transitions of political leaders ...

and explorer who mapped uncharted areas of Northern Arabia and made the first official British contact with Ibn Sa'ud, future king of

Saudi Arabia Saudi Arabia, officially the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), is a country in Western Asia. It covers the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula, and has a land area of about , making it the fifth-largest country in Asia, the second-largest in the A ...

. He was the military adviser to Ibn Sa'ud from 1910 to 1915, when he was shot and killed in the

Battle of Jarrab The Battle of Jarrab was a territorial battle between the Al Saud and their traditional enemies, the Al Rashid on 24 January 1915. It was a proxy battle of World War I between the British-supported Saudis and the Ottoman-supported Rashidis. R ...

by Ibn Shraim. He was buried in Kuwait.

Arabian expeditions

While in Kuwait, Shakespear made seven separate expeditions into the Arabian interior, during which he became a close friend of Ibn Sa'ud, then the

Emir Emir (; ar, أمير ' ), sometimes transliterated amir, amier, or ameer, is a word of Arabic origin that can refer to a male monarch, aristocrat, holder of high-ranking military or political office, or other person possessing actual or cerem ...

of the

Nejd Najd ( ar, نَجْدٌ, ), or the Nejd, forms the geographic center of Saudi Arabia, accounting for about a third of the country's modern population and, since the Emirate of Diriyah, acting as the base for all unification campaigns by the H ...

. It was Shakespear who arranged for Ibn Sa'ud to be photographed for the first time. Ibn Sa'ud had never seen a camera before. In March 1914, Shakespear began a journey from Kuwait to

Riyadh Riyadh (, ar, الرياض, 'ar-Riyāḍ, lit.: 'The Gardens' Najdi pronunciation: ), formerly known as Hajr al-Yamamah, is the capital and largest city of Saudi Arabia. It is also the capital of the Riyadh Province and the centre of the R ...

and on to

Aqaba Aqaba (, also ; ar, العقبة, al-ʿAqaba, al-ʿAgaba, ) is the only coastal city in Jordan and the largest and most populous city on the Gulf of Aqaba. Situated in southernmost Jordan, Aqaba is the administrative centre of the Aqaba Govern ...

via the

Nafud An Nafud or Al-Nefud or The Nefud ( ar, صحراء النفود, ṣahrā' an-Nafūd) is a desert in the northern part of the Arabian Peninsula at , occupying a great oval depression. It is long and wide, with an area of . The Nafud is an erg ...

Desert, which he mapped and studied in great detail, the first European to do so. In November 1914, the

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, ...

government in India asked Shakespear to secure Ibn Sa'ud's support for the British-Indian Mesopotamian Expeditionary Force, which had just taken

Basra Basra ( ar, ٱلْبَصْرَة, al-Baṣrah) is an Iraqi city located on the Shatt al-Arab. It had an estimated population of 1.4 million in 2018. Basra is also Iraq's main port, although it does not have deep water access, which is hand ...

Aftermath

It has been suggested by some authorities, notably St. John Philby, that the

Arab Revolt The Arab Revolt ( ar, الثورة العربية, ) or the Great Arab Revolt ( ar, الثورة العربية الكبرى, ) was a military uprising of Arab forces against the Ottoman Empire in the Middle Eastern theatre of World War I. On t ...

against the

Ottoman Empire The Ottoman Empire, * ; is an archaic version. The definite article forms and were synonymous * and el, Оθωμανική Αυτοκρατορία, Othōmanikē Avtokratoria, label=none * info page on book at Martin Luther University) ...

might have been very differently directed if Shakespear had survived, that the

would have supported and armed Ibn Sa'ud rather than

Sherif Hussein ibn Ali Hussein bin Ali al-Hashimi ( ar, الحسين بن علي الهاشمي, al-Ḥusayn bin ‘Alī al-Hāshimī; 1 May 18544 June 1931) was an Arab leader from the Banu Hashim clan who was the Sharif and Emir of Mecca from 1908 and, after procl ...

"His death... was a great loss to his country, but it was a disaster to the Arab cause. It must certainly be reckoned in the small category of individual events which have changed the course of history. Had he survived to continue a work for which he was so eminently suited, it is extremely doubtful whether subsequent campaigns of
Lawrence Lawrence may refer to: Education Colleges and universities * Lawrence Technological University, a university in Southfield, Michigan, United States * Lawrence University, a liberal arts university in Appleton, Wisconsin, United States Preparator ...
would ever have taken place in the west..."

''Arabia'', H. St. John Philby, London (1930), pp 233 - 234.

External links

Biography
with a picture.

from ''Saudi Aramco World''.

* ttp://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~shakespeare/military/capt_wm_hy/memorial.htm Memorial Stonebr>BBC - Shakespear of Arabia
{{DEFAULTSORT:Shakespear, Captain William 1878 births 1915 deaths Military personnel from Mumbai English explorers Explorers of Asia Explorers of Arabia British Indian Army officers Devonshire Regiment officers Graduates of the Royal Military College, Sandhurst British military personnel killed in World War I People educated at King William's College Expatriates from the United Kingdom in Arabia