Dictionary of National Biography, 1927 supplement/Wilson, Charles Rivers
WILSON, Sir CHARLES RIVERS (1831–1916), civil servant and financier, was born in London 19 February 1831, the eldest son of Melvil Wilson, of independent means, by his wife, Louise, daughter of Major-General Sir Benjamin Stephenson. He passed through Eton to Balliol College, Oxford, and graduated B.A. in 1853. Three years later he entered the Treasury, and was appointed private secretary to James Wilson [q.v.], the financial secretary. From 1869 to 1874 he performed the same function for Robert Lowe (afterwards Viscount Sherbrooke) [q.v.], while Lowe was Gladstone's unpopular chancellor of the exchequer. Promotion came at the end of this administration, and Rivers Wilson was appointed comptroller-general of the National Debt Office (1874). This post brought him into touch with the critical position of Egyptian finance; and when, a year later, Disraeli's purchase of the khedive's shares in the Suez Canal made its prosperity of primary importance to Great Britain, Rivers Wilson was deputed by the British government to serve on the council of the Canal company, while retaining his comptroller-generalship.
The experience which he acquired in this capacity, and during a short mission to Cairo in 1876, marked him out as the natural representative of Great Britain when Egypt's default of payment in that year led Great Britain and France to agree upon a joint investigation of khedivial revenue and expenditure. This was delayed for some time by the obstructive tactics of Khedive Ismail; but on 4 April 1878 a commission was appointed, of which M. de Lesseps was president, and Rivers Wilson, in the capacity of vice-president, the effective head. A first report (rendered in August) not only prescribed drastic financial reforms, but also recommended limitations of the khedive's absolutism. On 23 August Ismail summoned Rivers Wilson to hear his acceptance of the report, and a few days later authorized Nubar Pasha to form a ministry in which Wilson should take the portfolio of finance—the first foreigner to hold a cabinet position under a khedive. Wilson went home to negotiate a loan upon the hypothecated khedivial estates, and did not take up office in Cairo until nearly the end of November. The ministry was destined to brief life. Though supported by the powers, it was barely tolerated by Ismail, who avenged his restriction to a constitutional position by declining responsibility for the extrication of his country from the financial straits to which his own extortions, and a recent low Nile, had condemned it. In view of his attitude, Wilson agreed with Nubar that the doctrine of ministerial responsibility should be logically enforced by the exclusion of the khedive from the deliberations of his council. In this policy Wilson undoubtedly was influenced by Nubar, for whom he had much respect and affection. Within three months it became clear that an irresponsible khedive of Ismail's prestige and power could nullify any measures taken by a ministry without his previous advice. Proof was offered by the military mutiny in February 1879, when Nubar and Wilson were dragged out of a carriage, hustled violently into the ministry of finance, and held there, the animus of the crowd being directed against Nubar, and only against Wilson when he stood by his colleague. The ministers were rescued by Ismail in person, and on the following morning Nubar resigned. The finance minister, however, and the minister for public works, M. de Blignières, carried on under Sherif Pasha, Wilson stout-heartedly refusing to find money for the mutineers till it could be procured by loan at a reasonable rate. But his position was rapidly becoming untenable. His views about restricting the khedive's share in government had not only exasperated Ismail, but caused difficulties with the British political representative, (Sir) Hussey Vivian; and when he proposed a plan for dealing with the April coupon by postponement, the khedive appealed confidently to his other ministers, the chamber, and the country against an act of insolvency. The end came on the eve of the publication of the final report of the commission of inquiry, which, it was known, would declare Egypt bankrupt. Both European ministers were dismissed by Ismail on 7 April. During the following twelve months, which saw the deposition of Ismail and the establishment of Tewfik as a constitutional president of his council, Wilson performed no function in Egypt. But he was recalled from his London office in April 1880 to be president of the international commission of liquidation, which was to formulate a scheme for the regular payment of the Egyptian coupon. After much division of opinion about the shares of the revenue to be allotted respectively to the bondholders and to the Egyptian administration, the commission made recommendations which the khedive accepted in July; but it never reported formally for fear of exposing its lack of accord; and the general effect of its activities was to starve the Egyptian administration and to embitter national feeling.
Wilson then left for London and was rewarded with a K.C.M.G. Except that he continued till 1896 to serve on the council of the Suez Canal (to which he did good service by negotiating, in 1884, the addition of seven representatives of British mercantile interests) he passed for good from Egypt. He had occupied a conspicuous position there, and proved himself a master of the technicalities of finance; but Lord Cromer, who worked under and with him, has qualified his warm appreciation of Wilson's ability and quickness of intelligence with words implying that he lacked political sense, and adaptability to conditions different from those with which the normal Treasury official has to deal. He had regarded Egypt from the single point of view of international finance; and, since that aspect was to become ever less important in the years to come, he left little mark on the country and cannot be called one of its makers.
After representing Great Britain at the Brussels monetary conference in 1892, he resigned his comptroller-generalship in 1894, and two years later also his seat on the Suez Canal council. His first wife, Caroline, daughter of Mr. R. Cook, whom he married in 1860, had died in 1888, and he married secondly, in 1895, the Hon. Beatrice Mostyn, sister of the seventh Baron Vaux, of Harrowden. He had no children by either marriage.
Wilson now put his expert knowledge at the service of industrial finance, becoming in 1895 president of the Grand Trunk Railway of Canada, and subsequently accepting office on the boards of the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway, the Rand Control electric works, and the Alliance assurance company. Failing health led in 1909 to his retirement from active service on these boards and from the chair of the Grand Trunk Railway. His tenure of the last had been marked by important developments of the system, notably by the construction of the great Victoria tubular bridge at Montreal, and the replacement of the Niagara suspension bridge by a single span double track. Wilson had to conduct the negotiations with the Canadian government which resulted in the formation of the Grand Trunk Pacific Company in 1903 and the construction of the western part of the transcontinental line to a Pacific terminus at Prince Rupert. He lived in his later years in Berkeley Square and had a country place at Chertsey; and it was at the former that he died 9 February 1916, being within a few days of completing his eighty-fifth year.
[Personal knowledge.]