Alice Tredwell (née Pickering; 1823 – 14 June 1867) was an English railway contractor and photographer. She is best known for the completion of the

Bhor Ghat Bhor Ghat is a mountain pass located between and for railway and between Khopoli and Khandala on the road route in Maharashtra, India, on the crest of the Western Ghats. History In February 1781, Bhorghat was the site of a battle between ...

section of the

Great Indian Peninsular Railway The Great Indian Peninsula Railway (reporting mark GIPR) was a predecessor of the Central Railway (and by extension, the current state-owned Indian Railways), whose headquarters was at the Boree Bunder in Mumbai (later, the Victoria Terminu ...

line between

Mumbai Mumbai ( ; ), also known as Bombay ( ; its official name until 1995), is the capital city of the Indian state of Maharashtra. Mumbai is the financial capital and the most populous city proper of India with an estimated population of 12 ...

and

Pune Pune ( ; , ISO 15919, ISO: ), previously spelled in English as Poona (List of renamed Indian cities and states#Maharashtra, the official name until 1978), is a city in the state of Maharashtra in the Deccan Plateau, Deccan plateau in Western ...

in 1863. Alice Pickering was born in

Leek, Staffordshire Leek is a market town and civil parish in Staffordshire, England, on the River Churnet north east of Stoke-on-Trent. It is an ancient borough and was granted its royal charter in 1214. It is the administrative centre for the Staffordshire ...

, in 1823. She married Solomon Tredwell, a railway contractor, in

Leeds Leeds is a city in West Yorkshire, England. It is the largest settlement in Yorkshire and the administrative centre of the City of Leeds Metropolitan Borough, which is the second most populous district in the United Kingdom. It is built aro ...

in 1846. Awarded the construction of the Bhor Ghat section of the Great Indian Peninsular Railway, Alice and Solomon arrived in India in 1859. Solomon died of dysentery or cholera within a month. Alice Tredwell took up the contract with a remarkable "degree of spirit and judgment", assigning the Railway's engineers Swainston Adamson and George Louis Clowser to manage the construction. The construction was completed by 1863. Tredwell photographed much of the Bhor Ghat landscape and the development of the line. Adamson and Clowser continued to work for Tredwell's company, extending the Peninsular railway towards

Madras Chennai, also known as Madras ( its official name until 1996), is the capital and largest city of Tamil Nadu, the southernmost state of India. It is located on the Coromandel Coast of the Bay of Bengal. According to the 2011 Indian ce ...

, constructing the section between

Sholapur Solapur () is a city located in the south-western region of the Indian state of Maharashtra, close to its border with Karnataka. Solapur is located on major highway, rail routes between Mumbai, Pune, Bangalore and Hyderabad, with a branch line ...

and

Gulbarga Kalaburagi, formerly known as Gulbarga, is a city in the Indian state of Karnataka, It is headquarters of eponymous Kalaburagi district and Kalaburagi division, Kalaburagi city is governed by a Municipal Corporation, It is called a Sufi c ...

. Alice Tredwell returned to England in 1860. She had inherited £70,000 from her husband. Her only surviving daughter Alice Martha Elizabeth got married in 1866. Tredwell died in Ryde on the

Isle of Wight The Isle of Wight (Help:IPA/English, /waɪt/ Help:Pronunciation respelling key, ''WYTE'') is an island off the south coast of England which, together with its surrounding uninhabited islets and Skerry, skerries, is also a ceremonial county. T ...

on 14 June 1867.

External links

Alice Tredwell's Photographs, VADS

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Tredwell, Alice 1823 births 1867 deaths People from Leek, Staffordshire British railway civil engineers British railway pioneers Photographers from Staffordshire Railway officers in British India 19th-century English businesspeople