Wilson, Sir C [ Charles ] Rivers & MacAlister, Everilda [editor] — Chapters From My Official Life

Edward Arnold 1916 1st edition. Cloth, G+. xvi+310pp+16pp publishers catalogue, b/w frontis, 3 b/w plates, preliminary pages including the title foxed, spine lettering dulled and with the corners a little bumped & rubbed. A nice copy. The life of the British civil servant and financier Sir Charles Rivers Wilson [ 1831 - 1916 ]. During his career as a civil servant he was deeply involved in Egyptian affairs, being a director of the Suez Canal Company, then Financial Minister in Egypt at the time of the Urabi Revolt and subsequent British occupation of Egypt in 1882. The fall of the Khedive Ismail saw Wilson in full control, of the Egyptian Treasury. After his career in Egypt he became, in 1895, president of the Grand Trunk Railway of Canada before founding the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway in 1903. 'His name with be indelibly connected with modern Egyptian history. It was largely through his efforts that Egypt gained a constitution, and he played a historic part in the closing scenes of its last depotic ruler, Ismail Pasha' [preface]