Abbas I of Egypt

Succeeding his uncle Ibrahim Pasha in 1848, Abbas Hilmi I adopted a deeply conservative policy, resisting aggressive European economic tutelage while reducing taxation on Egyptian peasants and dismantling state monopolies.

He approved the construction of the Cairo-Alexandria Railway by British engineer Robert Stephenson, the first railway network on the African continent. Highly suspicious and reclusive, he was assassinated in his palace at Banha by his own mameluke guards in 1854.