This volume is conceived and offered as a tribute to Robin Bligh, in recognition of his long and dedicated service to the Gibb Memorial Trust, spanning a remarkable forty-six years from 1974 until his retirement in 2020, and in gratitude for the calm and efficient way in which he guided and managed the work of the Trust and husbanded its resources.

Robin is well aware of the aims and efforts of the Gibb Memorial Trust, to promote and publish research in the core areas of Middle East studies (or, as it was generally known, Oriental studies), and of the largely human obstacles to their achievement – indeed no doubt often to the point of ennui; the advent of emails and the internet has had little impact on the speed of correspondence, decision-making or on the intervals between a volume being proposed and its final publication. When Robin was appointed Clerk to the Trust in 1974 upon the retirement of Mr W. L. Dominy, the Trustees in attendance were Robin Zaehner (in the Chair), Freddie Beeston, J. A. Boyle, Ann K. S. Lambton, Jim Pearson, Bob Serjeant and Geoffrey Lewis, with apologies from Bernard Lewis and Malcolm Lyons. Robin Zaehner died before the next meeting, while Bernard Lewis, who had just moved to Princeton, never attended another meeting – but most of the others would become quite familiar figures over the next few years, not to mention other Trustees appointed subsequently. But how much did Robin, with his background as an accountant and struggling to impose order and efficiency on their dealings, actually know about them all and their academic achievements? With meetings only once a year and often little contact in between, the annual gatherings over lunch and a relatively short agenda may have revealed little more than the Trustees’ interests, sociability and general demeanour.

Rather than a history of the Gibb Memorial Trust, of which Robin himself is such a significant part, we therefore thought it might be more interesting to our dedicatee to present a series of portraits of former Trustees, written by current ones.