Article ID: CBB001321004

The Pontifex Minimus: William Willcocks and Engineering British Colonialism (2014)

unapi

Sir William Willcocks (1852--1933) was a prominent British irrigation engineer who served in various British colonies. Best known as the chief designer of the Old Aswan Dam, Willcocks was born and trained in India, achieved prominence with his contribution to the development of centralized and perennial irrigation in Egypt, and was hired at the end of his career by the Ottomans to restore the ancient irrigation works of Mesopotamia (which was then on the verge of being acquired by the British). In this article, I follow Willcocks' voyages across the British Empire and show how hydraulic science moved from one colonial centre to another, and how this movement contributed to the construction and maintenance of colonialism on the ground. Often sent to newly acquired territories with ambitious projects to redesign the landscapes of property and agriculture, Willcocks and other engineers who gained their expertise in the colonies relied on lessons from their day-to-day struggle with the land and other social actors' competing agendas to develop the daily techniques that helped establish colonial rule. As the reception of Willcocks' work in London illustrates, it was in the metropole that engineers' practices were translated into a colonial symbolism that had large-scale technical systems as the right tools for the job of subordinating unruly waters and Nature writ large.

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Authors & Contributors
Ertsen, M. W.
Rodrigues, Ana Duarte
Mircea O. Popoviciu
Toribio, Carmen
Wesselink, A. J.
Vriend, H. J. d.
Concepts
Colonialism
Hydraulic engineering
Hydraulics
Dams
Drainage; irrigation
Engineering
Time Periods
19th century
20th century
20th century, early
Renaissance
21st century
20th century, late
Places
India
Egypt
Nile River
Netherlands
South Africa
France
Institutions
UNESCO
Royal Indian Engineering College, Cooper's Hill, England
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