Aden Settlement

Origins

In January 1839 forces of the British East India Company under Captain Stafford Haines captured Aden from the Sultanate of Lahej after a dispute over a plundered ship. Britain wanted a coaling station for steamships between Suez and Bombay, and Aden was governed from the Bombay Presidency.

Rule and society

Haines served as political agent and built up the port, which had shrunk to a village. Aden was declared a free port in 1850, and after the Suez Canal opened in 1869 it became one of the world's busiest bunkering stations, with Indian, Somali, Jewish and Yemeni communities. From the 1870s Britain signed protection treaties with the hinterland rulers, creating the Aden Protectorate. Its administration passed to British India and then the British Raj.

Decline and legacy

Under the Government of India Act of 1935, Aden was separated from India and became a Crown colony on 1 April 1937, as the Colony of Aden.