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Bertram Sidney Thomas was born near Bristol and educated at Trinity College, Cambridge. He served in Belguim and Iraq in the First World War and subsequently as an Assistant Political Officer in Iraq from 1918 to 1922, and Assistant British Representative in Jordan from 1922 to 1924. He was appointed as Finance Minister and Wazir to Taimur bin Feisal, the Sultan of Muscat and Oman, a post he held from 1925 to 1932. In this capacity, he undertook a number of expeditions into the desert, and became the first European to cross the Rub' al Khali in 1930-1931, a journey he recounted in Arabia Felix (1932), in which he described this desert's animals, inhabitants, and culture. During World War II, Thomas headed the Middle East Centre for Arab Studies in Jerusalem, where British Army officers were taught Arabic language and culture. He returned to England and died in the house in which he was born, in 1950.

Arnold Talbot Wilson was born in 1884 and educated at Clifton College. He started his military career in 1903 and went to serve in India. From there he was posted to Iran. In 1907, Wilson was transferred to the Indian Political Department and sent to the Persian Gulf, where he served as a political officer. Wilson oversaw the discovery of the first oil site in the Middle East, Masjid-i-Suleiman, in 1908. He became Consul-General of Muhammerah (1909–11) and was put in charge of the Turko-Persian Frontier Commission. In January 1915 as the British were moving troops from India into Mesopotamia through the Persian Gulf and Basra, Wilson was designated as the assistant, and then deputy, to Sir Percy Cox, the British Political Officer for the region. Based in Baghdad, he then became the acting Civil Commissioner for Mesopotamia. He continued to serve in this role until 1920. He retired from service in 1921.
In 1933, Wilson was elected in a by-election as the Conservative MP for Hitchin. However, in October 1939 after the outbreak of the war, he joined the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve, serving as a pilot officer (air gunner) in 37 Squadron of RAF Bomber Command. Still an MP, he was killed in northern France, near Dunkirk, on 31 May 1940 when his bomber aircraft crashed. He is buried at Eringhem churchyard, half-way between Dunkirk and Saint-Omer.