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Graham Anthony Hill papers

Call Number

AD.MC.052

Date

1956-2000, inclusive

Creator

Hill, Graham Anthony

Extent

0.4 Linear Feet in 1 document box, and one poster in oversize map file.

Language of Materials

English .

Abstract

Photographs, broadsheets, documents, periodicals and book, related chiefly to the military service of Graham Anthony Hill, an officer with the British Army, who served with the Trucial Oman Scouts and Union Defence Force, in the early 1970s, in the Trucial States and later, the United Arab Emirates.

Biographical note

Graham Anthony Hill was born around 1934, and raised in Devon, England, in a town near Exeter. In some records, his name is alternately presented as Antony Graham Hill. Little biographical information is available about him, but military records show that he was a British Army cadet who was placed on the National Service List as a second lieutenant with the Regular Army, in Devon and Dorset, in April 1959, and was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant in the Wessex Brigade of the Territorial Army in December 1960, and transferred at that rank to the Gloucestershire Regiment in December 1962. [Source: Supplement to the London Gazette, https://www.thegazette.co.uk/, accessed November 2019]. He appears to have remained with the Gloucestershire Regiment for the remainder of his military career, and judging from the contents of his archive, may have served in Cyprus and in Aden during the 1960s, among other locations.

In 1970, he was seconded to the Trucial Oman Scouts, where he served in the Trucial States in the emirate of Sharjah, training local recruits at a base near the town of Manama. Following the union of the United Arab Emirates in December 1971, he remained in this post, now serving with the Union Defence Force. After his departure from the United Arab Emirates in 1974, he served elsewhere until his retirement from the British Army at the rank of Major in June 1977. Documents in his papers show that he was employed as a civilian contractor in Jubail, Saudi Arabia, in 1979. He subsequently returned to England, and some veterans of the Trucial Oman Scouts remember having seen him living in Exeter in his later years.

Arrangement

The collection is divided into three parts: Biographical, photographs, and printed material and ephemera. Items are further arranged within these groups by folder title, in rough alphabetic order.

Scope and contents

The Graham A. Hill papers consist of photographs, broadsheets, documents, periodicals and a book, related chiefly to the military service of Graham Anthony Hill with the Trucial Oman Scouts and Union Defence Force, in the early 1970s, in the Trucial States and later, the United Arab Emirates.

Photographs, some produced by the Royal Air Force, others taken presumably by Hill or other military personnel he knew, document training exercises and parades at the training camp in Manama (Ajman), circa 1971-1972; images of leaders of the emirate of Dubai, including Sheikh Rashid bin Saeed al Maktoum and his son, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid, inspecting a newly constructed military facility in 1973; images of Sharjah and surrounding areas of the northern Emirates, circa early 1970s; and personal snapshots from Hill of friends and colleagues. Also included are postcards sent by Hill to his family in England during a trip to Israel in 1960; photographs, presumably of locations in the Eastern Mediterranean, circa 1960s.

The collection also includes three publications related to Hill's period in the Emirates, newsletters from the Trucial Scouts Officers Association (1999-2000); six broadsheets in Arabic offering rewards for turning in various types of weapons, a wanted poster related to suspected insurgents in Aden, and a poster in Arabic and English warning against entry into a military installation (the last two items have not been definitively identified, but are likely from Aden in the mid-1960s).

The collection is divided into three parts: Biographical, photographs, and printed material and ephemera. The Biographical section contains a few items that could help with identifying who Graham A. Hill was, and includes identification cards, correspondence to his parents, and material from the Trucial Oman Scouts Association. The Photographs form the bulk of the collection, including both official and informal photographs, some taken by Hill, some taken by the Royal Air Force, and others by unidentified photographers, including friends of Hill. Handwritten notations identifying locations or individuals are written on the verso of several images. The Printed Material and Ephemera portion of the collection included material collected by Hill about or related to the region, and usually contemporary to his time there.

Conditions governing access

The Graham A. Hill papers are open for use in the Archives and Special Collections Reading Room at New York University Abu Dhabi.

Conditions Governing Use

No copyright information about this collection is available, but it can be presumed that some of the materials are still protected by copyright, and the use of any materials beyond what is commonly understood as "fair use" would require permission of the presumptive copyright holder(s).

Preferred citation

[item], [folder title], Graham A. Hill papers, MC-052, New York University Abu Dhabi Library, Abu Dhabi, UAE.

Immediate source of acquisition

Acquired by purchase, 2018.

Collection processed by

Brad Bauer

About this Guide

This finding aid was produced using ArchivesSpace on 2023-08-21 18:16:03 +0400.
Using Describing Archives: A Content Standard
Language: Description is written in: English, Code for undetermined script script.

Processing information

Processed by Brad Bauer, 2019.

Repository

NYU Abu Dhabi, Archives and Special Collections
NYU Abu Dhabi
New York University Abu Dhabi, C-2
P.O. 129188
Abu Dhabi
nyuad-asc-group@nyu.edu