H. R. P. Dickson

Lieutenant Colonel Harold Richard Patrick Dickson (4 February 1881 – 14 June 1959) was a British colonial administrator in the Middle East from the 1920s until the 1940s, and author of several books on Kuwait.

H. R. P. Dickson was one of six children of John Dickson, a diplomat in the Levant from 1872–1906, and Edith Wills. He was born in Beirut, Lebanon and was taken at a young age to Damascus, Syria where his father was Consul. There his mother's milk failed and Shaikh Mijwal al Mazrab, the husband of Lady Jane Digby, provided the young child with a wet nurse from the 'Anizah tribe. Islamic law lays out the permanent family-like relationships that are created by wet nursing, and this "blood affinity" between Dickson and the 'Anizah meant he was treated as a member of the tribe. He stated that this blood tie 'in later life has been of assistance to me in my dealings with the Badawin [bedouin] of the high desert and around Kuwait'. Following the death of Lady Jane Digby, the Dickson family rented her house in Damascus, and Dickson recalled that he 'spent my childhood days rambling about the lovely garden that had once been [her] pride and happiness.'.

Dickson met his wife Dame Violet Dickson nee Lucas-Calcraft (1896 – 1991) in Marseilles, France, shortly after the end of World War I, where she was working in a bank. She travelled out to meet him in India, where he was stationed and where they were married. Shortly afterwards he was posted to Iraq.

Dickson served as British Political Agent in Bahrain from 1919-1920. He also served in Persia (present-day Iran). In 1929 he was appointed British Political Agent to Kuwait, and served in this role until 1936. He briefly held this role again in 1941.

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