William Shakespear

Captain William Henry Irvine Shakespear, CIE (29 October 1878 – 24 January 1915) was a British civil servant and explorer who mapped uncharted areas of Northern Arabia and made the first official British contact with Ibn Saud, future king of Saudi Arabia. He was the military adviser to Ibn Sa'ud from 1910 to 1915, when he was killed in the Battle of Jarrab by Matni bin Shraim, who was fighting with Ibn Rashid's men. He was buried in Kuwait.

Early life He was baptised in Multan, one of three sons of William Henry Sullivan Shakespear of the Imperial Forestry Service, and Anne Caroline Shakespear (née Davidson). All of the boys were enrolled at Portsmouth Grammar School in 1889. From 1893 he attended King William's College in the Isle of Man and then went on to Sandhurst. After graduating from Sandhurst he spent time in India where he served as a 2nd Lieutenant and in 1901 was appointed as an Assistant District Officer in Bombay.

In 1904 he was appointed Consul at Bandar Abbas in what was then Persia before being transferred in 1909 to Kuwait where he held the post of British Political Agent.

Percy Cox replaced Shakespear as the United Kingdom's liaison to Ibn Saud and held this position until 1922. Cox facilitated the signing of the Treaty of Darin, on the island of Tarut on 26 December 1915.