| I
read
with interest Mrs. Maureen Brown‘s letter concerning her husband‘s great
grandfather who worked for the Egyptian Railways in the nineteen century,
and I think that I can answer some of her questions.
I
worked for the British Consulate in Cairo, from 1951 to 1968,
and I can assure Maureen that all children, born to British Citizens had
to be registered at the nearest British Consulate. Thomas George Brown‘s
children, being born in Boulac, the nearest British Consulate would be
in Kasr El Doubara (Cairo) where the actual British Embassy is located.
The Consulate would issue the birth certificates and would advise the Foreign
Office, in London. I believe that these registrations were kept in both
Cairo and London. I would like to add that every British Subject living
abroad had to register at the nearest Consulate.
As
far as the history of the Egyptian Railways is concerned, my Egyptian husband
came to my rescue and stated the following:
1-
Egypt was one of the very first countries to build a railway network and
was helped by Great Britain which was a pioneer in that field.
2-The
Egyptian Railways were then and now government owned and operated. The
system was built by Egyptian workers supervised by (mostly) British Engineers
on loan from the British Railways -- see the captioned
below (BR) (which were then owned and operated by the British
Government). My husband ‘s guess is that the late Thomas George Brown worked
for the BR.
| On
12 July, 1851 Khedive `Abbas Hilmiy I (Muhammad `Aliy's
grandson) and Robert Stevenson (the son of George Stevenson, who invented
the steam locomotive) signed the contract to establish Egypt's first railway
line -- a mere three years after the end of Muhammad `Aliy's reign.
Stevenson was appointed the chief engineer of the Egyptian Railway. Among
the 18 British engineers appointed at the time was a Mr Sevry, who trained
locomotive drivers -- and even Sa`iyd Pasha (who succeeded `Abbas)
himself. |
3-As
far as schools for foreign children are concerned, I would like to say
that there has been, since the beginning of the 20th century, and still
are now, excellent English schools such as the English School, Victoria
College, English Mission School and St. Clare College to name a few. (Our
two daughters were students at St. Clare before moving to Canada). I doubt
that these schools existed during the late T. G. Brown ‘s time and, since
foreigners were richly endowed, it was more convenient for both parents
and children to send the kids’ home for their schooling.
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