For Queen Victoria, the capture of Aden was the first addition to the British Empire since her accession to the throne in 1837. Haines’ knowledge of Aden’s history made him optimistic about the possibilities for its future.

‘Scarcely two centuries and a half ago’, he wrote, ‘this city ranked among the foremost of the commercial marts of the East the superiority of Aden is in its excellent harbours, both to the East and to the West; and the importance of such a station, offering as it does a secure shelter for shipping, an almost impregnable fortress, and an easy access to the rich provinces of Hadhramaut and Yemen is too evident to require to be insisted upon’.

Appointed Political Agent by the Bombay Presidency of the East India Company Haines served in this capacity without leave for the next fifteen years, presiding over Aden’s rapid expansion as a fortress with a garrison of 2-3,000 Indian sepoys and as a port which by the early 1850s had a population of 20,000.

Haines’s deep personal commitment to the revival of Aden’s prosperity, despite the parsimony and vacillation of his political masters, ultimately led to his tragic imprisonment in Bombay. He had not kept strict enough control over his accounts and, although acquitted of embezzlement, the East India Company had him confined for six years in a debtors' prison in Bombay. He died in 1860, a few years after his release, aged just 58. But in South West Arabia his name lived on and for decades and local tribesmen referred to the inhabitants of Aden as Awlad Haines (‘Haines’s children’).

Haines' House

The house initially occupied by Haines in Biggari Valley, Crater, and known as The Residency or The Old Residency is said to have been rented from a local Hindu merchant and to have been situated near a Hindu temple.

By 1930 the Residency was being used as a guest-house for visiting Arab chiefs. From 1948 until about 1954 it became the headquarters of the British Agency, Western Aden Protectorate. It is possible there are remains of the building still in existence today.

Haines eventually built himself a new, more suitable residence at Ras Tarshyne overlooking Sapper Bay and Telegraph Bay and with views across the water to Little Aden. This was a much more comfortable house and his wife and child joined him there from Bombay.

Haines paintings.