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Purchase of Sheikh Othman 1880
By the late 1870s it was realised that Aden was getting
too crowded. The solution proposed by the Resident at
the time, Brigadier Loch, was ‘to purchase the villages
of Sheikh Othman and Imad and adjoining lands with a
view to forming a civil settlement there to relieve the
pressure of the civil population in the military town
and garrison of Aden’. This proposal was put to India in
1878 and was approved in June 1879. But the actual
purchase was to be deferred until ‘a more convenient
financial season’.
Connaught Road, Sheikh
Othman circa 1900
The land was all owned by the Sultan
of Lahej and to keep him on board in July 1879 he was
given an advance payment of 20,000 rupees, which would
become an interest-free loan in the event that the plan
was abandoned. (To put the price in perspective 20,000
rupees was just over two years salary for the 1st
Assistant Resident, and quite a bit less than a year’s
salary for the Resident, not counting the increment he
received if he was also commanding the troops .)
The following year it was realised that the purchase
would need to be completed without further delay, in
particular to avoid government having to pay increased
sums to other interested parties. In November 1880
government agreed to pay the following: Another 35,000
rupees to the Sultan, making a total of 55,000 to him
and less than two year’s worth of Loch’s salary. A
further 5,000 rupees to the Fadhli Sultan who had claim
to some of the land, plus another 5,000 to the Kazi of
Lahej who had helped broker the deal.
Sheikh Othman circa 1947
Apart from these down payments the Sultan’s monthly
subsidy from government was to be increased quite
considerably to compensate him for the loss of revenue
from water and salt. For the former he was to receive
600 and for the latter 500 (Maria Teresa) dollars a
month. It was also agreed that the change of border
would not alter the right of the Sultan to levy transit
dues on trade with Aden.
(Little Aden had already been bought in the 1860s, so
this was not part of this deal)
See also Sheikh
Othman Fair Day |
