Ahmed Abboud Pasha

Born in 1889 to a middle-class family in Cairo and largely brought up by his mother, Labiba, Abboud Pasha excelled at school, eventually winning an Ottoman Scholarship and electing to study Engineering and Shipbuilding at the University of Glasgow in 1905. As part of the terms of his scholarship, he worked on the expansion of the network of the Hejaz Railway in Iraq and Palestine, as well as various irrigation projects on the Euphrates.

Whilst studying in Glasgow he met his future wife Jemima, the daughter of a Scottish Presbyterian family. In the face of her family's opposition to their marriage, they subsequently eloped to Constantinople, where Abboud Pasha was stationed under the terms of his scholarship from 1912. In 1923 the couple celebrated the birth of their only child, Mona, in Alexandria.

Abboud established a construction firm in Egypt in 1924, which originally focused on contract work on government-financed irrigation canals. Between 1929 and 1933, his construction company developed improvements to height on the Aswan Dam. His company also found success doing work on a plethora of state projects.[2]

By the 1940s, he owned the Sugar Company, the Khedival Mail Line as well as the Egyptian General Omnibus Company.[3] In addition, he was the largest shareholder of Banque Misr, and obtained a seat on its board of directors in 1950. In the same year, he became the first Egyptian director of the Suez Canal Company, which was then owned by foreigners.

Abboud received the noble title of Pasha on 14 February 1931.[4] He was also active in politics. He became a parliamentary deputy in 1926, representing the Wafd Party which he supported financially until Mustafa el-Nahhas became its leader in 1927. Abboud later reconciled with the party and started supporting it once again during its final years in power, and was close to party strongman Fouad Serageddin.

Ahmed Abboud Pasha died in London in 1963, and was reported to be among the ten richest men in the world at the time of his death.

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General

• Beinin, Joel (1998). "Chapter 13 – Egypt: society and economy, 1923–1952". In M. W. Daly (ed.). The Cambridge History of Egypt. Vol. Two: Modern Egypt from 1517 to the End of the Twentieth Century. Cambridge University Press. pp. 327–328. ISBN 978-0-521-47211-1. Retrieved 10 April 2009.
• "Biography of Abbud Pasha". Memory of Modern Egypt Digital Archive (in Arabic). Bibliotheca Alexandrina. Retrieved 17 April 2009.

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