Ferdinand de Lesseps
(1805-1894)

Vicomte Ferdinand de Lesseps was a French diplomat and friend of Sa’id Pasha, from whom he obtained a concession (20 November 1854) for the construction of the Suez Canal. Work on the monumental project began in 1859 and was finally completed in 1869. The success of the venture owed a great deal to Lesseps’s skill and tenacity. In 1879 he attempted to repeat his success by building a Panama Canal between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, but the project ended in disaster when he tried to construct it without locks.