Robin ''("Rob")'' Leonard Bidwell (25 August 1927 in

St Giles, London St Giles is an area in London, England and is located in the London Borough of Camden. It is in Central London and part of the West End of London, West End. The area gets its name from the parish church of St Giles in the Fields. The combined p ...

– 1994 in Coney Weston or

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) 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 or Stonyhurst is a co-educational Catholic Public school (United Kingdom), public school providing education for boarding school, boarding and day school, day pupils, adhering to the Society of Jesus, Jesuit tradition. It is ...

Downside School Downside School (formally The College of St Gregory the Great, Downside but simply referred to as Downside) is an 11–18 mixed, Roman Catholic, independent, day and boarding school in Stratton-on-the-Fosse, Somerset, England. It was establish ...

and

Pembroke College, Cambridge Pembroke College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge, England. The college is the third-oldest college of the university and has over 700 students and fellows. It is one of the university's larger colleges, with buildings from ...

, he was sent as Intelligence Corps sergeant to the

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. From 1955 to 1959 he served as Political officer in

Western Aden Protectorate The Aden Protectorate ( ') was a British protectorate in southern Arabia. The protectorate evolved in the hinterland of the port of Aden and in the Hadhramaut after the conquest of Aden by the Bombay Presidency of British India in January 1 ...

in the hinterland of present-day Yemen. Thereafter as

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travelling editor for the Middle East he visited all Middle East and North African countries. In 1965 he returned to

Cambridge University The University of Cambridge is a Public university, public collegiate university, collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209, the University of Cambridge is the List of oldest universities in continuous operation, wo ...

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 Year of birth uncertain 1994 deaths Alumni of Pembroke College, Cambridge English explorers English spies English travel writers 20th-century British travel writers 20th-century British explorers English orientalists Explorers of Arabia English Arabists 20th-century English historians People from the Aden Protectorate British expatriates in Egypt People educated at Downside School People educated at Stonyhurst College People from St Giles, London {{UK-explorer-stub