Colonel Sir Colin Campbell Scott-Moncrieff (3 August 1836 – 6 April 1916) was a British engineer, soldier and civil servant, best known for repairing the

Nile Barrage The Delta Barrage is barrage-type dam that was constructed intermittently beginning in 1833 to its initial completion in 1862. Its purpose was to improve irrigation and navigation along the main Rosetta and Damietta branches of the Nile downstre ...

and reorganizing the irrigation system of

Egypt Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediter ...

in the 1880s.

Early life and India

Scott-Moncrieff was born in 1836, the son of

Robert Scott Moncrieff Robert Scott Moncrieff (1 December 1793 – 18 June 1869) was a Scottish advocate, amateur illustrator and caricaturist. Life He was born in Tullibole Castle near Fossoway on 1 December 1793. He trained in law at the University of Edinburgh ...

. After training at the

East India Company The East India Company (EIC) was an English, and later British, joint-stock company founded in 1600 and dissolved in 1874. It was formed to trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies (the Indian subcontinent and Southea ...

's establishment in

Addiscombe Addiscombe is an area of south London, England, within the London Borough of Croydon. It is located south of Charing Cross, and is situated north of Coombe and Selsdon, east of Croydon town centre, south of Woodside, and west of Shirley. Et ...

, he was commissioned into the

Bengal Engineers The Bengal Engineer Group (BEG) (informally the Bengal Sappers or Bengal Engineers) is a military engineering regiment in the Corps of Engineers of the Indian Army. The unit was originally part of the Bengal Army of the East India Company's Ben ...

, party of the Company's private army which was soon integrated into the British army. He arrived in

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

in 1858, and was involved in clearing-up operations after the

Indian Rebellion of 1857 The Indian Rebellion of 1857 was a major uprising in India in 1857–58 against the rule of the British East India Company, which functioned as a sovereign power on behalf of the British Crown. The rebellion began on 10 May 1857 in the fo ...

, but was soon employed in the Indian irrigation system, becoming Chief Engineer of the Jumna Canal, then Superintending Engineer of the

Ganges Canal The Ganges Canal or Ganga Canal is a canal system that irrigates the Doab region between the Ganges River and the Yamuna River in India. The canal is primarily an irrigation canal, although parts of it were also used for navigation, primaril ...

from 1869–77, and Chief Engineer of

Burma Myanmar, ; UK pronunciations: US pronunciations incl. . Note: Wikipedia's IPA conventions require indicating /r/ even in British English although only some British English speakers pronounce r at the end of syllables. As John Wells explai ...

until 1883. He was appointed a Companion of the

Order of the Star of India The Most Exalted Order of the Star of India is an order of chivalry founded by Queen Victoria in 1861. The Order includes members of three classes: # Knight Grand Commander (GCSI) # Knight Commander ( KCSI) # Companion ( CSI) No appointments ...

in 1878.

Egypt

Retiring with the honorary rank of Colonel, on his way home he was summoned to Cairo to meet

Lord Dufferin Frederick Temple Hamilton-Temple-Blackwood, 1st Marquess of Dufferin and Ava (21 June 182612 February 1902) was a British public servant and prominent member of Victorian society. In his youth he was a popular figure in the court of Queen Vict ...

who offered him "the keys of the Nile" – the position of Director of Irrigation for Egypt, then still nominally part of the Ottoman Empire, but in practice controlled by the British. His first priority was the

, designed to retain water to irrigate the Delta, which had been built at great expense between 1843 and 1862 but soon abandoned when cracks appeared in its structure. Scott Moncrieff arranged for a trial closing of the gates allowing a limited operation, while carefully monitoring the cracks. The results were so successful in terms of improved agricultural yield that he was able to ask for, and get, a million pounds for a complete repair and strengthening of the Barrage, which was carried out between 1885 and 90. Over a period of nine years he reorganised the whole irrigation system and "was so successful in improving the whole irrigation system that Egypt, from being a bankrupt country, became comparatively flourishing". For his work in Egypt he was appointed KCMG.

After Egypt

Scott-Moncrieff returned to Britain in 1892 and served as Under-Secretary for Scotland from 1892 to 1902. From 1901 to 1903, at the invitation of

Lord Curzon George Nathaniel Curzon, 1st Marquess Curzon of Kedleston, (11 January 1859 – 20 March 1925), styled Lord Curzon of Kedleston between 1898 and 1911 and then Earl Curzon of Kedleston between 1911 and 1921, was a British Conservative statesman ...

, the Viceroy, Scott-Moncrieff served as President of a Commission to investigate and report on the prospects for further developing the Indian irrigation system. For this work he was appointed KCSI in the 1903 New Year Honours. His great-nephew was C.K. Scott-Moncrieff, the famed first translator into English of

Proust Valentin Louis Georges Eugène Marcel Proust (; ; 10 July 1871 – 18 November 1922) was a French novelist, critic, and essayist who wrote the monumental novel ''In Search of Lost Time'' (''À la recherche du temps perdu''; with the previous Eng ...

's ''Remembrance of Things Past''.Findlay, J (2014): Chasing Lost Time The Life of C.K. Scott Moncrieff: Soldier, Spy and Translator. London: Vintage

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Scott-Moncrieff, Colin Royal Engineers officers 1836 births 1916 deaths Knights Commander of the Order of the Star of India Knights Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George British East India Company Army officers Burials at Greyfriars Kirkyard