WILSON.
1109
Secretary to the Eoyal Commission apx>ointed to examine the question of an International Coinage in 1868. On the return of Mr. Cave to England from his Financial Mission to Egypt, Mr. Eivers Wil- son, at the request of the Khedive, went to Egypt in March, 1876, with the view of his acceptance of a financial post in that country; but after the issue of the decree of May 7, 1876, by which an arbitrary readjustment of the Public Debt of Egypt was proposed, he returned to England, and resumed his post at the National Debt Office. On July 29, 1876, he was appointed one of the British Government Adminis- trators of the Suez Canal Company ; on Jan. 22, 1877, he was appointed a Eoyal Commissioner for the Paris Exhibition of 1878; on March 30, 1878, he was appointed Vice-Presi- dent, and in the absence of M. de Lesaeps acted as President, of an International Commission of In- quiry, instituted by the Khedive, at the instigation of the foreign governments, to examine the re- sources of Egypt, and propose mea- sures for remedying the financial disorder in that country. The Re- port of the Commission, Aug. 10, 1878, traced the whole of the mis- chief to the system of personal administration by the Viceroy, and proposed that His Highness should surrender his estates and those of his family to make good the deficit in the revenue, and pay the large floating debt of the country. The immediate consequence of the pre- sentation of their Report was an acceptation by the Khedive of all its conclusions, and a formal an- nouncement to Mr. Rivers Wilson of the determination of His Highness to abandon his actual system of government for one more in con- formity with European exi)erience, and to govern in future by means of a responsible ministry. The formation of the new cabinet was entrusted to Nubar Pasha, who offered to Mr, Rivers Wilson the
post of Finance Minister. With the consent of Her Majesty's Govern- ment, Mr. Rivers Wilson accepted this position (Sept. 1878) until Jan. 1, 1881, when he would have been at liberty to return to his office of Comptroller-General of the National Debt Office. In April, 1879, how- ever, the Khedive struck the blow he had long been meditating. He dismissed Mr. Rivers Wilson and M. de Blig^i^res; and soon after- wards Mr. Rivers Wilson was re- called by the English Government in order to resume his duties at the National Debt Office. He was created a K.C.M.G. in Jan. 1880. On April 5 in that year the new Khedive, Tewfik Pasha, signed a decree appointing Sir Rivers Wilson President of the International Com- mission of Liquidation. In Oct. 1880 he received the royal licence and authority to accept and wear the insignia of the First Class of the Turkish Order of the Med- jidieh. In July, 1883, Sir Rivers Wilson went to Paris to submit to M. de Lesscps the opinion of the British Government on the pros- pects of a discussion in the House of Commons respecting the Suez Canal Convention.
WILSON, Daniel, LL.D., F.R.S.E., President of. University College, Toronto, Canada, was born at Edinburgh, in 1810, and is an elder brother of Professor George Wilson, the eminent chemist. He was educated at the University of Edinburgh. In 18i7 he published "Memorials of Edinburgh in the Olden Time,"' 2 vols., 4to, illus- trated from liis own drawings. In 1848 he published "Oliver Crom- well and the Protectorate." In 1851 apjxjared his gi'eat work, "The Archffiology and Prehistoric Annals of Scotland," with about 200 ilhistrations drawn by himself. This work, thoroughly revised and greatly enlarged by him, was pub- lished in 2 vols., 8vo, in 1863. In I 1863 he issued his " Prehistoric Man : Researches into the Origin
