Henry Flavelle Forbes (1877 – 30 November 1959) was a member of the

Imperial Civil Service The Indian Civil Service (ICS), officially known as the Imperial Civil Service, was the higher civil service of the British Empire in India during British rule in the period between 1858 and 1947. Its members ruled over more than 300 million p ...

who played a notable part in the modern

history of Iraq Iraq is a country in Western Asia that largely corresponds with the territory of ancient Mesopotamia. The history of Mesopotamia extends from the Lower Paleolithic period until the establishment of the Caliphate in the late 7th century AD, after wh ...

Biography

Forbes was born in 1877 in South Dublin, Ireland, of the

United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland was a sovereign state in the British Isles that existed between 1801 and 1922, when it included all of Ireland. It was established by the Acts of Union 1800, which merged the Kingdom of Great B ...

. Educated at Wesley College in Dublin, he graduated from

Trinity College, Dublin , name_Latin = Collegium Sanctae et Individuae Trinitatis Reginae Elizabethae juxta Dublin , motto = ''Perpetuis futuris temporibus duraturam'' (Latin) , motto_lang = la , motto_English = It will last i ...

University, where he was a Senior Exhibitioner in History and Politics. He joined the

and eventually attained the position of judge in

British India The provinces of India, earlier presidencies of British India and still earlier, presidency towns, were the administrative divisions of British governance on the Indian subcontinent. Collectively, they have been called British India. In one ...

. He married Muriel Jessie Handyside in 1914 in India. From 1916–1920, he was stationed in Mesopatamia as part of the

Mesopotamian campaign The Mesopotamian campaign was a campaign in the Middle Eastern theatre of World War I fought between the Allies represented by the British Empire, troops from Britain, Australia and the vast majority from British India, against the Central Powe ...

of the First World War, which was largely run by the British India office and included many Indian soldiers. There, he served as a judicial commissioner. Forbes was made a Companion of the Most Eminent

Order of the Indian Empire The Most Eminent Order of the Indian Empire is an order of chivalry founded by Queen Victoria on 1 January 1878. The Order includes members of three classes: #Knight Grand Commander (GCIE) #Knight Commander ( KCIE) #Companion ( CIE) No appoi ...

in 1919 for services in the Indian Political Department "in, and in connection with, the Military Operations in Mesopotamia." As President of the Court of Appeal in Iraq, he wrote a substantial review of one of the more significant civil laws that had been inherited from the Ottoman government.Forbes, H.F. The Peace Judges' Law of the 11 Nissan 1329 (24 April 1913) (So far as it Relates to Civil Suits). Baghdad, Iraq: Government Press. 1920 In the summer of 1920, the pair left Iraq for home leave in Great Britain and travel in Europe. Afterward, they returned to Simla and the Punjab, and Henry resumed his judicial and administrative work with the India department.

Muriel Forbes

Muriel Jesse Handyside (1884–1969) was a Scottish expatriate born to a business family in Peterhof, Russia. She was the sister of a senior officer of the Indian Police Service,

Eric Charles Handyside Eric Charles Handyside (3 November 1881 – 1 April 1926) was a British policeman who served as Officiating Commandant of the North West Frontier Police in what is today Pakistan. Handyside received several commendations for his service there. ...

. After her marriage to Henry in India in 1914, she stayed in India initially, but followed her husband to

Baghdad Baghdad (; ar, بَغْدَاد , ) is the capital of Iraq and the second-largest city in the Arab world after Cairo. It is located on the Tigris near the ruins of the ancient city of Babylon and the Sassanid Persian capital of Ctesiphon ...

in the nascent state of

Mandatory Iraq The Kingdom of Iraq under British Administration, or Mandatory Iraq ( ar, الانتداب البريطاني على العراق '), was created in 1921, following the 1920 Iraqi Revolt against the proposed British Mandate of Mesopotamia, an ...

from 1919–1920. There, she started a push to establish a new library for the population, despite not knowing any Arabic herself. Her initiative was successful; she raised enough funds, donations, and a site to establish the Baghdad Peace Library (''Maktabat al-Salam''). Sometimes this act is incorrectly attributed to

Gertrude Bell Gertrude Margaret Lowthian Bell, CBE (14 July 1868 – 12 July 1926) was an English writer, traveller, political officer, administrator, and archaeologist. She spent much of her life exploring and mapping the Middle East, and became highly ...

; while Bell attended a library promotional meeting in November 1919 and would later serve as President of the Library Committee after its establishment, Forbes was the founder. The library would eventually go on to become the basis of the

Iraq National Library and Archive The Iraq National Library and Archive (INLA; ar, دار الكتب والوثائق العراقية, ''Dār al-Kutub wa al-Wathā’iq al-‘Irāqiyyah'') is the national library and national archives of Iraq. It is located in the Iraqi capita ...

. Muriel Forbes died in 1969 in

Gloucestershire Gloucestershire ( abbreviated Glos) is a county in South West England. The county comprises part of the Cotswold Hills, part of the flat fertile valley of the River Severn and the entire Forest of Dean. The county town is the city of Gl ...

, England.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Forbes, Henry Flavelle 1877 births 1959 deaths People from South Dublin (county) British civil servants Alumni of Trinity College Dublin Companions of the Order of the Indian Empire People educated at Wesley College, Dublin