Sir Alex Meadows Rendel (1829-1918) [PLOT 45]
Civil Engineer.
Born on the 3rd April, 1829, educated at King’s College, Canterbury, and Trinity College, Cambridge, he began his engineering career under his father, the late James Meadows Rendel, on the death of his father, in 1856, he succeeded him in the business.
He was appointed engineer to the London Dock Co, and among the works carried out in the Port of London for which he was responsible were the Hermitage Wharf, the Shadwell Basin, and the extension of the Victoria Dock, now the Royal Albert Dock.
He was responsible also for the Edinburgh and Albert Docks at Leith. Other docks designed by him were Workington, Llanelly and Kirkaldy, and Milford. His principal work, however, lay in India. In 1857, he was appointed consulting engineer to the East Indian Railway, and, in 1872, became consulting engineer to the Secretary of State for India. From that time onward he was responsible for the building up of the great State railway system, for the construction of many thousands of miles of railways, and for the bridging of most of the great rivers in that country, notably the Upper Sone Bridge on the East Indian Railway, the Alexandra Bridge over the Chenab, the Lansdowne Bridge over the Indus at Sukkar, the Hardinge Bridge over the Ganges, and the Empress Bridge over the Sutlej.
Other railway work of somewhat less importance, Sir Alexander Rendel was consulting engineer for the Uganda Railway, for the Egyptian Light Delta Railways, and for the Mexican Railway Company.
Sir Alexander Rendel was elected a Member of The Institution of Civil Engineers in 1862 and served as a Member of the Council from 1880 to 1883.
He died in London on the 23rd January 1918.
