13 Facts About William Willcocks

Sir William Willcocks was a British civil engineer during the high point of the British Empire.

William Willcocks was an irrigation engineer who proposed and built the first Aswan Dam, the scale of which had never been attempted previously.

William Willcocks later undertook other major irrigation projects in South Africa and in Arab regions of the dying Ottoman Empire.

William Willcocks graduated from the Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee in 1872, and joined the Indian Public Works Department the same year.

William Willcocks was serving as director general of reservoirs for Egypt when he completed his studies and plans in 1896 to construct the Aswan Low Dam, the first true storage reservoir on the river.

William Willcocks supervised its construction from 1898 to its completion in 1902.

William Willcocks designed and constructed another dam on the Nile, the Assiut Barrage, completed in 1902.

William Willcocks later became chairman of the Cairo Water Works Company, and was president of the Anglo-Egyptian Land Allotments Company which was instrumental for the urbanization of Zamalek district early in the 20th century.

William Willcocks left his position in Egypt by 1897 and four years later he was invited to South Africa.

William Willcocks later became head of irrigation for the Ottoman Turkish government, for what was then the greater area of Turkish Arabia.

William Willcocks drew up the first accurate maps of the region, which were subsequently a great help to British expeditionary forces in 1914 and again in 1915.

William Willcocks later worked on irrigation projects in Romania shortly before the outbreak of World War I, and again as late as 1928 in Bengal, where he had received some his early training.

William Willcocks was bound over for good behaviour for one year.