Sir William Willcocks KCMG was a British civil engineer during the high point of the British Empire. He was an irrigation engineer who proposed and built the first Aswan Dam, the scale of which had never been attempte28 July 1932, Cairo, Egyptd previously.
Sir William Willcocks, a British civil engineer who proposed and designed the first Aswān (Assuan) Dam and executed major irrigation projects in South Africa and Turkey.
Willcocks was one of four sons of a British Engineer posted in Roorkee for Ganges canal works. He graduated from the Thomason College of Civil Engineering, Roorkee in 1872, and joined the Indian Public Works Department the same year. Following the British invasion and occupation of Egypt, he began work with the long-established Egyptian Public Works Department in 1883.
While serving as director general of reservoirs for Egypt, he completed studies and plans on the Aswān Dam, which was completed in 1902. He supervised its construction from 1898 to its completion in 1902. He also designed and constructed another dam on the Nile, the Assiut Barrage, also completed in 1902. He later became chairman of the Cairo Water Works Company, and was also president of the Anglo-Egyptian Land Allotments Company which was instrumental for the urbanization of Zamalek district) early in the 20th century.
Willcocks retired from his Egyptian post in 1897 and four years later went to South Africa to plan irrigation systems for the arid regions. Part of his scheme was implemented and brought him a knighthood. He became head of irrigation for the Turkish government and in 1911 proposed a plan to bring water to the area of ancient Chaldea, now southern Iraq. As a result, the Hindīyah Barrage was built on the Euphrates River, near the site of ancient Babylon, and 3,500,000 acres were brought under irrigation. He 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.