Robin ''("Rob")'' Leonard Bidwell (25 August 1927 or 1929 in
St Giles, London
St Giles is an area in the West End of London in the London Borough of Camden. It gets its name from the parish church of St Giles in the Fields. The combined parishes of St Giles in the Fields and St George Bloomsbury (which was carved out o ...
– 1994 in
Coney Weston
Coney Weston is a village and civil parish in Suffolk, England, within the West Suffolk district. It is a primarily rural residential town that has dormitory town status. It is north of Ixworth and from Bury St Edmunds
Etymology
Coney West ...
or
Bury St Edmunds
Bury St Edmunds (), commonly referred to locally as Bury, is a historic market town, market, cathedral town and civil parish in Suffolk, England.OS Explorer map 211: Bury St.Edmunds and Stowmarket Scale: 1:25 000. Publisher:Ordnance Survey – ...
) was an English orientalist and author. He published many books about Yemen and Arabia as well as about French and British colonial history.
After education at
Stonyhurst College
Stonyhurst College is a co-educational Catholic Church, Roman Catholic independent school, adhering to the Society of Jesus, Jesuit tradition, on the Stonyhurst, Stonyhurst Estate, Lancashire, England. It occupies a Grade I listed building. Th ...
,
Downside School
Downside School is a co-educational Catholic independent boarding and day school in the English public school tradition for pupils aged 11 to 18. It is located between Bath, Frome, Wells and Bruton, and is attached to Downside Abbey.
Originall ...
and
Pembroke College, Cambridge
Pembroke College (officially "The Master, Fellows and Scholars of the College or Hall of Valence-Mary") is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge, England. The college is the third-oldest college of the university and has over 700 ...
, he was sent as
Intelligence Corps sergeant to the
Suez Canal Zone
The Suez Canal ( arz, قَنَاةُ ٱلسُّوَيْسِ, ') is an artificial sea-level waterway in Egypt, connecting the Mediterranean Sea to the Red Sea through the Isthmus of Suez and dividing Africa and Asia. The long canal is a popular ...
. From 1955 to 1959 he served as
Political officer in
Western Aden Protectorate
The Aden Protectorate ( ar, محمية عدن ') was a British protectorate in South Arabia which evolved in the hinterland of the port of Aden and in the Hadhramaut following the conquest of Aden by the Bombay Presidency of British Ind ...
in the hinterland of present-day Yemen. Thereafter as
Oxford University Press
Oxford University Press (OUP) is the university press of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world, and its printing history dates back to the 1480s. Having been officially granted the legal right to print books ...
travelling editor for the Middle East he visited all Middle East and North African countries. In 1965 he returned to
Cambridge University
, mottoeng = Literal: From here, light and sacred draughts.
Non literal: From this place, we gain enlightenment and precious knowledge.
, established =
, other_name = The Chancellor, Masters and Schola ...
where he earned his PhD in 1968 about the
French administration in Morocco. Between 1968 and 1990 he had been Secretary and Librarian of the Middle East Centre in the Faculty of Oriental Studies in the University of Cambridge. From 1980 on he dedicated the rest of his life to his masterpiece ''Dictionary of Modern Arab History – An A to Z of over 2,000 entries from 1798 to the present day''.
Bibliography (selection)
*''Guide to Government Ministers'' (1971/73)
*''Affairs of Kuwait'' (1971/73)
*''Affairs of Arabia'' (1971/73)
*''Morocco Under Colonial Rule – French Administration of Tribal Areas 1912–1956'' (1973)
*''Arabian Studies'' (1974)
*''Travellers in Arabia'' (1976)
*''Guide to African Ministers'' (1978)
*''The Two Yemens'' (1983)
*''Arabian Gulf Intelligence'' (1985)
*''Arabian Personalities of the Early Twentieth Century'' (1986)
*''The Bulletin of the Arab Bureau in Cairo 1916–19'' (1986)
*''New Arabian Studies'' (1993)
*''Dictionary of Modern Arab History'' (1998)
References
External links
*The British Yemeni Society:
Obituary Robin Leonard Bidwell (1929–1994)'
*British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, Volume 21, Issue 1, 1994:
Robin Leonard Bidwell 1929–94'
*worldstatesmen.org:
'
1920s births
1994 deaths
English explorers
English spies
English travel writers
English orientalists
Explorers of Arabia
English Arabists
20th-century English historians
Aden Protectorate people
British expatriates in Egypt
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