The extraction of guano from the
island of Nauru in the Pacific is quite well known. It
may come as a surprise to read that the Settlement of
Aden once controlled huge deposits of guano on the Kuria
Muria Islands. There are five small islands in the group
which lies off the coast of present-day Oman. In 1854
the islands belonged to the Sultan of Muscat and in that
year they were ceded as a gift to the British government
so that a cable relay station could be installed there
as the last link in the chain that was being laid to
link England with India. Kuria Muria was to be the final
link between Aden and Karachi. Although the islands were
technically under Aden their proximity to Oman meant
that it was more convenient to place them under the
charge of the Resident in Muscat.
The guano deposits were then found
and in the six years 1855-1860 there was a huge
speculation in the trade of this incredible fertilizer.
During this period over 200,000 tons were taken away. At
one stage there were reported to be over 50 ships there
at any one time. One can only assume that stocks were
then exhausted as one hears no more of the exporting of
guano. The cable relay station was closed in 1862 when
the undersea link failed; by then better cable was
available which did not require so many landfalls and
the relay station on the Kuria Muria islands became
redundant (as did, for instance, the one at Port Sudan
in the Red Sea).
The guano trade did have one serious
knock-on effect in Aden.
Luke Thomas was the agent for P & O in Aden, the
latter having the contract to carry mails by steamer to
and from India on a regular basis – from Suez to Bombay
(and vice versa) on a weekly basis and likewise to
Calcutta fortnightly. By 1856 the mail steamers were
needing to take on at Aden 40,000 tons of coal annually.
It had been found from experience, to allow for defaults
by contractors, delays to colliers [that had to come via
the Cape, remember] and other contingencies that the
lowest safe stock to be held in all Indian Agencies
should be not less than 10 months supply, but at Aden,
due to exceptional circumstances this should be 12
months, i.e. 40,000 tons.
One part of the problem was the lack
of space at Aden for storing coal. The area allocated to
P & O, part of which was on reclaimed land, the cost of
which had been borne by that company, was only
sufficient to store 18,000 tons.
What was being referred to in
contemporary documents as The Guano Speculation
had exacerbated the situation as shipping agents in the
UK were sending out large additional stocks of coal
without having first ascertained that coaling agents in
Aden, and Luke Thomas in
particular, had sufficient coaling ground.
The matter came to a head in August
1857 when Luke Thomas
wrote to the Resident that he had 14 colliers in port,
of which the six that were unloading a total of 7,118
tons would, with close packing, completely fill the
ground allocated to him. There was no room whatsoever
for the 5,634 tons being carried on the other eight
ships. In addition another 19 colliers carrying a
further 12,126 tons for P & O were due shortly, plus a
further seven colliers carrying 5,800 tons for other
users.
The Resident replied that he would do
what he could to assist and he also mentioned that he
had heard that ‘over 80 colliers were expected in the
season now opening’. It was obvious that all these
cargoes could not be, and did not need to be, stored in
ready and convenient locations. As a temporary expedient
he had asked the Harbourmaster to give up any part of
the Government coaling ground that was not needed and
that time. As a long-term solution he allocated
additional land beyond Flint Island to be used as
coaling grounds.
