مجموعة من الصور القديمة تتعلق برجل افاد مصر

1. THOMAS FLETCHER WAGHORN
1800 -1850
Mr. Waghorn's Route To India
"Give me your mail," he told England, "and
I’ll deliver it to India in 90 days."

2. Waghorn entered the Royal Navy at Chatham and served
from 1812 until 1817 when the Navy was much reduced at
the end of the Napoleonic War. He continued in the
Merchant Navy and became a pilot in the Bengal Pilot
Service in 1820. He developed an interest in early attempts
at establishing a steamship route from England to India and
the East and in 1828 undertook investigations into a route
from the Cape of Good Hope and then through Egypt to
India. With the expansion of Britain's empire in the East from
India to Australia Waghorn saw the need for faster
communications from Britain and that the new steamships
could bring this about.
His attempts to introduce such a system with the authorities
both in India and Britain tell a sad tale of apathy, duplicity
and betrayal.

3. He set up in London a business for
conveying people and mails to India
via Egypt, easing the way for 275
passengers in 1835, and becoming
Deputy Consul in Egypt two years
later.
He had tremendous energy, courage, a stubborn honesty of purpose and in
his own words "I am a plain blunt fellow" - which was probably the cause of
his falling-out with his superiors. By 1835 Waghorn's service had become so
efficient that the English Post Office was obliged officially to recognise it as
the fastest and safest way to send mail to India. On 7
March, 1835, Waghorn's Overland Route was authorised to handle the
English mails.

4. Waghorn travelled constantly from England to India and back, inspecting
steamships and rest stations. By 1835 the journey to England, for either mail or
passengers, took 90 days, involving sailing by felucca and riding donkeys with 80
miles of sandy, desolate desert covered on camels or sand carts: Waghorn
reduced it to between 35 and 40 days.
But the passengers had an
extra concern that the
mails took precedence;
and their faster journey by
horse could mean that the
mails reached Suez well
ahead of the passengers.
Once the mails had arrived
the ship would wait only a
limited time for the
passengers to catch up: if
for some unfortunate
reason they were delayed
the ship left without them.

5. He set up a regular caravan service and built eight stopping
stations, along the 80 miles from Cairo and Suez, for changes of horses
teams and for the provision of meals for passengers.
Waghorn

6. His friendship with the Pasha and his
services had made the journey safe
and dependable. In time, three hotels
were built to service the passenger
route. Mohammed Ali opened a
house of agency (outpost) in
Suez, Waghorn built one at Cairo and
another was built at Alexandria for
receiving the mails.
By the time Waghorn left Egypt, in
1841, he had organised a service
using English carriages, vans and
horses to transport travellers and
had placed small English
steamers on the Nile and the
canal of Alexandria.

7. Interview With Mehmet Ali in His Palace at Alexandria
From "Egypt And Nubia" by David Roberts (1796-1864)
[Lieutenant Waghorm is seated between the two men on the far right.]
Whilst in Alexandria, May 12, 1839, "says Mr. Roberts, I received from Colonel Campbell an invitation
to breakfast and afterwards to accompany him to an interview with the Pasha, which had been
arranged for that day. Our party started for the Arsenal, where Mehemet Ali was ready to receive us.
After passing through numerous guards we were ushered into the presence-chamber, which, from
the window, commanded a magnificent view of the harbour. The fleet, consisting of about twenty
sail of the line fully equipped, the Arsenal, the dockyards, and numerous batteries- displaying a
power created by his own forethought and energies, lay before us, a glorious scene. The room was
spacious and lofty, and crowded with officers in rich uniforms, many of them wearing their
decorations. The Pasha was in simple costume, without any mark of distinction upon him which
Nature had not stamped."
"Colonel Campbell was busy explaining to the Pasha the enthusiastic Lieutenant Waghorn's idea of
the overland rail route to India. And from memory. Roberts made a drawing of the scene; the
lithograph, though rather stiff, has historical interest. It is filled with portraits, including his own.
Old Bogosh Bey, the Armenian chief minister and most trusted servant, stands behind the Pasha.
Colonel Campbell, Waghorn, M. Linanr, the Venerable Dr Tattam, Mr Pell, and other Englishmen are
seated on a long divan in a balconied room against a wide background of the Pasha's fleet at
anchor in the harbour. Roberts depicted himself, eagerly leaning forward slightly, as if to capture
on his retina every possible detail not only of the Pasha's face but of the entire scene. It is, if not
artistic, at least a graphic tour deforce." David Roberts R.A. 1796-1864 - A Biography by Katharine
Sim, Quartet Books, London 1984 p.203

8. On November 4, 1838, a young lady in New York wrote
exciting news to her sister in India. There was a new
service that promised to deliver letters from London to
India in 90 days, she wrote. "I believe it is called the
Overland Route. A man named Waghorn is running it."
The young lady was quite right. Not long after, a letter
stamped "Overland Route c/o Mr. Waghorn" sped out to
India in the promised three months' time. For the
sisters, who had previously had to wait up to two years for
mail, it was almost as if they were holding hands. For the
man named Waghorn it was the climax of a struggle that
would eventually break his heart.

9. Unfortunately Waghorn's successes were his undoing, as others saw the
business potential and in 1840 the P&O company set up in competition with
him, backed by the British Government. As so often, it was not the pioneer who
reaped the rewards but those with the finance and contacts with the right
people. He first merged his business with his rivals J.R.Hill and Raven to form J.
R. Hill and Co., which in turn was taken over by Muhammad Ali to form the
Egyptian Transit Company.
Waghorn died soon after at home in England a broken man and it was not until
some time after was his contributions recognized.

10. "Overland Routes to India and
China," steel engraving by John
Tallis, published 1851;

11. Baron de Lesseps(Nov. 19, 1805–
Dec. 7, 1894), the builder of the
Suez Canal, nearly twenty years
after Waghorn's death, said of him
in a speech at a Paris celebration
of the completion of his canal:
"He it was who first conceived the
idea; it was his indomitable
courage and great
perseverance, which led him on
to prove its practicability ... but he
was in advance of his age, and
the very plans that were scoffed
at when first mooted were those
which, in my position as engineer
of the works, have enabled me to
carry them through."

12. The de Lesseps Statue
On November 20, 1859 Ferdinand de
Lesseps erected a bronze bust of
Waghorn overlooking the mouth of the
Suez Canal at the port of Tewfik.
Created by the French sculptor Vital
Dubray. On the base, he inscribed these
words of admiration:
"In homage to the memory of a generous
though unfortunate man, who alone,
without any help, by a long series of
labours and heroic efforts, practically
demonstrated and determined the
adoption of the postal route through
Egypt, and the communication between
the East and the West of the world; and
this was the originator and pioneer of the
great Egyptian maritime commerce
completed by the canal of the two seas."

18. The monument was destroyed during the 1956 Suez Crisis.

19. The Chatham Memorial Statue
Located: Chatham
Erected 1888, J. Moore, founder.
Limestone, ashlar and bronze; square
battered plinth with cast panels
showing a map of the route and
inscribed
THOMAS F WAGHORN
LIEUTENANT R N, PIONEER AND
FOUNDER OF THE OVERLAND ROUTE
BORN AT CHATHAM 1800
DIED JANUARY 7 1850.
On top, a standing figure in a coat
holding a map points to his ‘Overland
Route’.

20. • http://www.michelhoude.com/Waghorm/ImagesLTW/@WArticle.htm
• http://www.egyptstudycircle.org.uk/PostalHistory/overland.html