Svetlhdm at 17:28, 22 March 2025

2025-03-22T17:28:39Z

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{{Short description|British engineer and soldier}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2018}}
{{Use British English|date=April 2018}}
{{Infobox military person
| honorific_prefix = Colonel
| name = Sir Colin Scott-Moncrieff
| image = PXL 20220203 081827985 (2).jpg
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| birth_date = {{Birth date|1836|08|03|df=yes}}
| birth_place =
| death_date = {{Death date and age|1916|04|06|1836|08|03|df=yes}}
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| allegiance = {{flag|British Empire}}
| branch = {{army|United Kingdom}}
| serviceyears =
| rank = [[Colonel]]
| unit = [[Corps of Royal Engineers]]
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}}

Colonel '''Sir Colin Campbell Scott-Moncrieff''' {{postnominals|country=GBR|KCSI|KCMG}} (3 August 1836 – 6 April 1916) was a British engineer, soldier and civil servant, best known for repairing the [[Delta Barrage|Nile Barrage]] and reorganizing the irrigation system of [[Egypt]] in the 1880s.<ref>{{cite book |last=Hollings |first=Mary Albright |date=1917 |title=The Life of Sir Colin Scott-Moncrieff |url=https://archive.org/details/cu31924028345407|location=London |publisher=John Murray}}</ref>

== Early life and India ==
[[File:The coffin lid of Iufenamun, Egyptian high priest, presented by Colin Scott-Moncrieff to the Royal Scottish Museum.jpg|thumb|360px|The lid of coffin base and mummy of senior priest Iufenamun; the lid in fact belonged to another coffin (of Tjentweretheqau, his grandmother), presented by Colin Scott-Moncrieff to the Royal Scottish Museum]]
[[File:The grave of Colin Campbell Scott Moncrieff, Greyfriars Kirkyard.png|thumb|The grave of Colin Campbell Scott Moncrieff, [[Greyfriars Kirkyard]]]]
[[File:Detail. Coffin base and mummy of priest Iufenamun. The lid belonged to another coffin of Tjentweretheqau. From Egypt. National Museum of Scotland, Edinburgh, Scotland, UK.jpg|thumb|Detail. Coffin base and mummy of priest Iufenamun. From Egypt. Presented by Colin Scott-Moncrieff. National Museum of Scotland]]
Scott-Moncrieff was born in 1836, the son of [[Robert Scott Moncrieff]]. After training at the [[East India Company]]'s establishment in [[Addiscombe Military Seminary|Addiscombe]], he was commissioned into the [[Bengal Engineers]], party of the Company's private army which was soon integrated into the British army.

He arrived in [[India]] in 1858, and was involved in clearing-up operations after the [[Indian Rebellion of 1857]], but was soon employed in the Indian irrigation system, becoming Chief Engineer of the Jumna Canal, then Superintending Engineer of the [[Ganges Canal]] from 1869–77, and Chief Engineer of [[Burma]] until 1883. He was appointed a Companion of the [[Order of the Star of India]] in 1878.<ref>{{London Gazette|issue=8899|page-409|city=e|date=28 May 1878}}</ref>

== Egypt ==

Retiring with the honorary rank of Colonel,<ref>{{London Gazette|issue=25198|page=793|date=13 February 1883}}</ref> on his way home he was summoned to Cairo to meet [[Lord Dufferin]] 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 [[Nile Barrage]], 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".<ref>{{cite book |last=Hager |first=Willi |date=2009 |title=Hydraulicians in Europe 1800–2000: Volume 2 |publisher=CRC Press |page=1632 |isbn=9789078046066}}</ref> For his work in Egypt he was appointed KCMG.<ref>{{London Gazette|issue=25719|date=8 July 1887|page=3684}}</ref>

== After Egypt ==

Scott-Moncrieff returned to Britain in 1892 and served as [[Permanent Under-Secretary for Scotland|Under-Secretary for Scotland]] from 1892 to 1902.

From 1901 to 1903, at the invitation of [[Lord Curzon]], the Viceroy, Scott-Moncrieff served as President of a Commission to investigate and report on the prospects for further developing the Indian irrigation system.<ref>{{cite book |last=Scott-Moncrieff |first=Sir Colin Campbell |date=1903 |title=Report of the Indian Irrigation Commission, 1901–1903 |url=https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/012155910 |location=London |publisher=H. M. Stationery Office}}</ref> For this work he was promoted to a Knight Commander of the Order of the Star of India (KCSI) in the [[1903 Durbar Honours]].<ref>{{London Gazette|date=30 December 1902|issue=27511|supp=y|page=2}}</ref><ref>{{Cite newspaper The Times |title=The Durbar Honours |date=1 January 1903 |page=8 |issue=36966}}</ref>

His great-nephew was [[C.K. Scott-Moncrieff]], the famed first translator into English of [[Proust]]'s ''Remembrance of Things Past''.<ref>Findlay, J (2014): Chasing Lost Time The Life of C.K. Scott Moncrieff: Soldier, Spy and Translator. London: Vintage</ref>
== References ==
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Scott-Moncrieff, Colin}}
[[Category:Royal Engineers officers]]
[[Category:1836 births]]
[[Category:1916 deaths]]
[[Category:Knights Commander of the Order of the Star of India]]
[[Category:Knights Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George]]
[[Category:British East India Company Army officers]]
[[Category:Burials at Greyfriars Kirkyard]]
[[Category:19th-century British Army personnel]]
[[Category:British colonels]]

Colin Scott-Moncrieff - Revision history

Svetlhdm at 17:28, 22 March 2025