MACDONALD

UNITED KINGDOM (see also List of Individuals)

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6.5.1866 Inverness/UK - 24.4.1957 Nairn/UK

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Murdoch MacDonald was a distinguished engineer who contributed decades of his life to the irrigation in Egypt and later was instrumental in the hydro-power development of his country. Benjamin Baker (1840-1907) invited MacDonald in 1898 to Egypt as assistant engineer to Maurice Fitzmaurice (1861-1924), who was engaged on the construction of the Aswan Dam. During the first dam heightening between 1908 and 1912, MacDonald was director-general of irrigation for the Egyptian Government. For most of these years, his work was concerned with the Aswan Dam; besides, he was responsible for the design and the completion of the overall drainage schemes for Lower Egypt dealing with 3,000,000 acres. He also designed the Sennar Dam on the Blue Nile, the Gebel Aulia Dam in Sudan and the Esna Barrage on the Main Nile. MacDonald prepared a report Nile Control stating the reasons for these hydraulic works which had given controversy among engineers and the population.

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MacDonald retired from the Egyptian Government service in 1921 and established in London the firm Sir MacDonald and Partners. He was again invited to submit proposals for the second heightening of the Aswan Dam, a work being carried out from 1929 to 1933. At the end of World War II he was involved in the third heightening of the major dam of Egypt, a project later completed by the Soviet Union. In the 1950s, MacDonald was associated with some of the North of Scotland Hydroelectric Board's schemes, and with the Great Ouse flood protection scheme. He was a Member of the Institution of Civil Engineers from 1909 and became its president in 1932. His presidential address reviewed the works which he had made in Egypt, mainly in irrigation techniques and in dam design. He was created a KCMG in 1914, and a CB in 1917.

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_{Anonymous (1957). Sir Murdoch MacDonald. The Engineer 203: 670. P}

_{Anonymous (1957). Obituary: Sir Murdoch MacDonald KCMG, CB. Proc. Institution of Civil Engineers 8: 115-117.}

_{MacDonald, M. (1913). Assuan Dam: Protection of downstream rock surface and thickening and heightening. Minutes Proc. Institution of Civil Engineers 194(4): 249-277.}

_{MacDonald, M. (1920). The measurement of the discharge of the Nile through the sluices of the Assuan Dam. Minutes Proc. Institution of Civil Engineers 212(2): 228-268.}

_{MacDonald, M., Hurst, H.E. (1921). Measurement of discharge on the River Nile. Engineering}

_{111: 499-500; also Minutes Proc. Institution of Civil Engineers 212: 228-301. MacDonald, M. (1932). Presidential address. Minutes Proc. ICE 235(1): 1-30. P}