This image shows the pools of the Water Company of Cairo (Société anonyme des eaux du Caire) around 1873, possibly in its first location next to Qasr al-‘Ayni hospital before it moved to Bulaq or, much more likely, these are the pools in Abbasiya. This was a little water factory inasmuch as steam engines took the water from the Nile for further purification – hence coal became water (for coal in general see Barak, Powering Empire). Later, the street where the company was located was called Shāriʿ Wābūr al-Miyāh, the Water-Machine Street. The company is deeply connected to the planning of Cairo. Pierre Grand, whose map of Cairo below shows the company’s first location and who led the Urban Planning office in the 1870s, arrived in 1868 as an engineer in this company. A-J. Cordier, the first holder of the concession, was actually the original engineer in charge with creating a new quarter in 1869 (Volait, “Making Cairo Modern”).
A-J. Cordier received the concession for 99 years in 1865 to create the water canalization in Cairo. Four investors (Nubar, Cordier, J. Pastré, A. Nicopoulo and J. Claude) bought the concession from Cordier and created a company with 10 million Francs capital. The distribution of water started in 1870 and it continuously upgraded, starting with around 64 km of canals. By 1888, the society had 55,000 homes to serve. The Armenian-Egyptian Nubar and his son Boghos Nubar became the central figures in the company, next to the French expat investors living in Egypt. (Samir, La France et l’Égypte de 1882 à 1914, Chapter II). The Nubars had a special relationship to water in Cairo as we have already discussed in this post about the modern sabil. The company changed the source of water in 1905, switching from the Nile water to artesian wells – and causing much controversy (Ismail, “Epicures and Experts”).
It is somewhat unexpected that with such background, legally the company was a local company – it declared itself as such in its founding document – under khedivial jurisdiction whatever it meant. What it certainly meant was that the famous Mixed Courts had no jurisdiction over it unless the company became party in a court case involving a foreigner. For instance, in 1882 there was a dispute between the Water Company and the Railway Administration, and in both companies the chief administrators were Europeans. However, the Mixed Courts announced that they have no jurisdiction in cases involving two legally local organizations, thus they sent the case to local courts (Chakour Bey, Jurisprudence, 254).
Bibliography:
Barak, On. Powering Empire: How Coal Made the Middle East and Sparked Global Carbonization. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2020.
Chakour Bey, J. G.. Jurisprudence de la Cour d’appel mixte sur la propriété immobilière (1876 à fin 1891). Cairo: Imprimerie nationale, 1892.
Ismail, Shehab. “Epicures and Experts: The Drinking Water Controversy in British Colonial Cairo.” Arab Studies Journal 26, no. 2 (Fall, 2018): 9-43.
Saul, Samir. La France et l’Égypte de 1882 à 1914: Intérêts économiques et implications politiques. New edition [online]. Paris: Institut de la gestion publique et du développement économique, 1997.
Volait, Mercedes. “Making Cairo Modern (1870-1950) : Multiple Models for a “European-style” Urbanism.” In: Urbanism: Imported or Exported?, edited by Joe Nasr and Mercedes Volait, 17-50. London: Willey-Academy, 2003.
(A.M., with update from Shehab Ismail 28 April 2021)
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