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 ide ...

civil engineer. Rendel was born in Plymouth, the eldest son of the engineer James Meadows Rendel 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 thi ...

, Stuart Rendel, 1st Baron Rendel (who was also a Liberal MP), and Hamilton Owen Rendel. He was educated at

The King's School Canterbury The King's School is a public school (English independent day and boarding school for 13 to 18 year old pupils) in Canterbury, Kent, England. It is a member of the Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference and the Eton Group. It is Britain's ...

and

Trinity College Trinity College may refer to: Australia * Trinity Anglican College, an Anglican coeducational primary and secondary school in , New South Wales * Trinity Catholic College, Auburn, a coeducational school in the inner-western suburbs of Sydney, New ...

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a College town, 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. Cam ...

. Rendel was the engineer of the

London Dock Company London Docklands is the riverfront and former docks in London. It is located in inner east and southeast London, in the boroughs of Southwark, Tower Hamlets, Lewisham, Newham, and Greenwich. The docks were formerly part of the Port of Lo ...

in 1856, and was responsible for the

Shadwell Basin Shadwell Basin is a housing and leisure complex built around a disused dock in 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 Wapping as part of the wider d ...

, 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. 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 so ...

, and was consulting engineer to the India Office, 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, Barod ...

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, 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 appoi ...

(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 l ...

. 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 activities, ...

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 and ...

that first operated the bascules 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 clos ...

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. Con ...

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 ...

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