Sir Alexander Meadows Rendel, (3 April 1828 – 23 January 1918) was an

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national id ...

civil engineer A civil engineer is a person who practices civil engineering – the application of planning, designing, constructing, maintaining, and operating infrastructure while protecting the public and environmental health, as well as improving existing i ...

. Rendel was born in

Plymouth Plymouth () is a port city and unitary authority in South West England. It is located on the south coast of Devon, approximately south-west of Exeter and south-west of London. It is bordered by Cornwall to the west and south-west. Plymout ...

, the eldest son of the engineer

James Meadows Rendel James is a common English language surname and given name: *James (name), the typically masculine first name James * James (surname), various people with the last name James James or James City may also refer to: People * King James (disambiguat ...

and his wife Catherine Harris. Three of his brothers were civil engineers:

George Wightwick Rendel George Wightwick Rendel (6 February 1833 – 9 October 1902) was an English engineer, and naval architect. He was closely associated with the Tyneside industrialist and armaments manufacturer, William George Armstrong. Family George was the thir ...

, Stuart Rendel, 1st Baron Rendel (who was also a Liberal MP), and Hamilton Owen Rendel. He was educated at The King's School Canterbury and Trinity College,

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge beca ...

. Rendel was the engineer of the London Dock Company in 1856, and was responsible for the

Shadwell Basin Shadwell Basin is a Housing estate, housing and leisure complex built around a disused dock in Wapping, Wapping, London. The old dock was formerly part of the London Docks, a group of docks built by the London Dock Company at Shadwell and Wappin ...

, the

Connaught Tunnel The Connaught Tunnel is in southeastern British Columbia, on the Revelstoke–Donald segment. The tunnel carries the Canadian Pacific Railway (CP) main line under Mount Macdonald in the Selkirk Mountains, replacing the previous routing over R ...

and the Royal Albert Dock in London, the Albert and Edinburgh Docks in

Leith Leith (; gd, Lìte) is a port area in the north of the city of Edinburgh, Scotland, founded at the mouth of the Water of Leith. In 2021, it was ranked by ''Time Out'' as one of the top five neighbourhoods to live in the world. The earliest ...

Workington Dock and Harbour Workington is a coastal town and civil parish at the mouth of the River Derwent on the west coast in the Allerdale borough of Cumbria, England. The town was historically in Cumberland. At the 2011 census it had a population of 25,207. Loc ...

. In 1857-1858 he visited

India India, officially the Republic of India ( Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the ...

, and was consulting engineer to the

India Office The India Office was a British government department established in London in 1858 to oversee the administration, through a Viceroy and other officials, of the Provinces of India. These territories comprised most of the modern-day nations of ...

, the

East India Railway The East Indian Railway Company, operating as the East Indian Railway (reporting mark EIR), introduced railways to East India and North India, while the Companies such as the Great Indian Peninsula Railway, South Indian Railway, Bombay, Baro ...

and other Indian railways, and was a member of the commission to determine narrow gauge for Indian Railways, in 1870. He designed the

Lansdowne Bridge Rohri The Lansdowne Bridge ( Sindhi ; ur, ) over the Indus at Sukkur was one of the great engineering feats of the 19th century. The longest cantilever bridge ever built, it had to support the load of heavy steam locomotives. The bridge was inaugu ...

Sukkur Sukkur (; ) is a city in the Pakistani province of Sindh along the western bank of the Indus River, directly across from the historic city of Rohri. Sukkur is the third largest city in Sindh after Karachi and Hyderabad, and 14th largest city ...

over the

Indus River The Indus ( ) is a transboundary river of Asia and a trans-Himalayan river of South and Central Asia. The river rises in mountain springs northeast of Mount Kailash in Western Tibet, flows northwest through the disputed region of Kash ...

, which when it was completed in 1889 was the largest cantilever bridge in the world. The climax of his bridge-building career was considered to be the Howrah or Jubilee Bridge allowing trains to cross the Hooghly River near Calcutta; this was opened by the Viceroy on 21 February 1887 He was appointed a Knight Commander of the

Order of the Indian Empire The Most Eminent Order of the Indian Empire is an order of chivalry founded by Queen Victoria on 1 January 1878. The Order includes members of three classes: #Knight Grand Commander ( GCIE) #Knight Commander ( KCIE) #Companion ( CIE) No app ...

(KCIE) in 1897. He married Eliza Hobson (1830–1916), daughter of Captain

William Hobson Captain William Hobson (26 September 1792 – 10 September 1842) was a British Royal Navy officer who served as the first Governor of New Zealand. He was a co-author of the Treaty of Waitangi. Hobson was dispatched from London in July 1 ...

RN, the late first

Governor of New Zealand The governor-general of New Zealand ( mi, te kāwana tianara o Aotearoa) is the viceregal representative of the monarch of New Zealand, currently King Charles III. As the King is concurrently the monarch of 14 other Commonwealth realms and ...

. The ceremony was held on 27 January 1853 at the

Parish Church A parish church (or parochial church) in Christianity is the church which acts as the religious centre of a parish. In many parts of the world, especially in rural areas, the parish church may play a significant role in community activitie ...

Stoke Damerel Stoke, also referred to by its earlier name of Stoke Damerel, is a parish, that was once part of the historical Devonport, England; this was prior to 1914. In 1914, Devonport and Plymouth amalgamated with Stonehouse: the new town took the nam ...

, Devonport by the Rev James Elliot, uncle of the bride. They had five sons and three daughters, including: *Dr. Arthur B. Rendel, who married in 1902 Elizabeth Cecilia Blair, daughter of Colonel H. F. Blair, RN. His youngest surviving brother, Hamilton Owen Rendel, designed and supervised the installation of the steam driven compound condensing pump engines, hydraulic accumulators and

hydraulic machinery Hydraulic machines use liquid fluid power to perform work. Heavy construction vehicles are a common example. In this type of machine, hydraulic fluid is pumped to various hydraulic motors and hydraulic cylinders throughout the machine a ...

that first operated the

bascule Bascule may refer to: * Bascule bridge, a moveable bridge with a counterweight that continuously balances the span in providing clearance for boat traffic * Bascule (horse), the arc a horse's body takes as it goes over a jump * Bascule light, a sma ...

s of the iconic

Tower Bridge Tower Bridge is a Grade I listed combined bascule and suspension bridge in London, built between 1886 and 1894, designed by Horace Jones and engineered by John Wolfe Barry with the help of Henry Marc Brunel. It crosses the River Thames close ...

in London. He was the designer of

Hardinge Bridge Hardinge Bridge is a steel railway truss bridge over the Padma River located at Ishwardi, Pabna and Bheramara, and Kushtia in Bangladesh. It is named after Lord Hardinge, who was the Viceroy of India from 1910 to 1916. The bridge is long. ...

in Bangladesh. Alexander Rendel died at 51

Gordon Square Gordon Square is a public park square in Bloomsbury, London, England. It is part of the Bedford Estate and was designed as one of a pair with the nearby Tavistock Square. It is owned by the University of London. History and buildings The s ...

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

, on 23 January 1918. He is buried with his family in

Brookwood Cemetery Brookwood Cemetery, also known as the London Necropolis, is a burial ground in Brookwood, Surrey, England. It is the largest cemetery in the United Kingdom and one of the largest in Europe. The cemetery is listed a Grade I site in the Regi ...

References

1828 births 1918 deaths Engineers from Plymouth, Devon English civil engineers Burials at Brookwood Cemetery {{England-engineer-stub