Mary Patricia Kendrick

MBE Mbe may refer to: * Mbé, a town in the Republic of the Congo * Mbe Mountains Community Forest, in Nigeria * Mbe language, a language of Nigeria * Mbe' language, language of Cameroon * ''mbe'', ISO 639 code for the extinct Molala language Molal ...

born Mary Patricia Boak (2 May 1928 – 8 June 2015) was a British tidal engineer who was an expert on silt. She worked on many projects but she is known for leading a team working on the

Thames Barrier The Thames Barrier is a retractable Flood barrier, barrier system built to protect the floodplain of most of Greater London from exceptionally high tides and storm surges moving up from the North Sea. It has been operational since 1982. When n ...

. She broke a 200 year long list of Admirals who looked after keeping the

River Mersey The River Mersey () is in North West England. Its name derives from Old English and means "boundary river", possibly referring to its having been a border between the ancient kingdoms of Mercia and Northumbria. For centuries it has formed part ...

navigable when she appointed

Acting Conservator of the River Mersey The Acting Conservator of the River Mersey is a unique position. The holder is responsible for ensuring navigation on, and protecting the environment of, the River Mersey in the North West of England. The Conservator originally acted on behalf o ...

- a role that dates back to 1625.

Life

Kendrick was born in

Nottingham Nottingham ( , East Midlands English, locally ) is a city status in the United Kingdom, city and Unitary authorities of England, unitary authority area in Nottinghamshire, East Midlands, England. It is located north-west of London, south-east ...

in 1928. Her parents were Dorothy Ellen and Charles Manley Boak. Her father was a haulage contractor and they lived at 19 Curzon Street in Nottingham. In 1951 she graduated with a double first from Cambridge University in English and Geography''.'' Her first job was at the UK government's

Hydraulics Research Station HR Wallingford was previously the Hydraulics Research Station (HRS). It was created by the UK Department of Scientific and Industrial Research in 1947. The Research Station was based in Wallingford, near Oxford. It was established to deal with “ ...

(HRS) at Wallingford. She modestly applied for a job as a secretary and it was the interviewer who decided she should be an ''Assistant Experimental Officer''. Her first task was to study the increasing silt building up in the River Mersey. In 1964 she was the only female senior manager at the Hydraulic Research Station where she had a team of ten people (all men). That year she won the

Telford Medal The Telford Medal is a prize awarded by the British Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE) for a paper or series of papers. It was introduced in 1835 following a bequest made by Thomas Telford, the ICE's first president. It can be awarded in gold ...

given annually by the

Institution of Civil Engineers The Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE) is an independent professional association for civil engineers and a charitable body in the United Kingdom. Based in London, ICE has over 92,000 members, of whom three-quarters are located in the UK, whi ...

for the paper ‘Field and model investigations into the reasons for siltation in the Mersey estuary’, co-authored in 1963 with her colleague (William) Alan Price and published in the ''Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers''. She was the first woman to be given this honour. In 1968 hydraulic studies were funded to understand how a barrier across the

River Thames The River Thames ( ), known alternatively in parts as the The Isis, River Isis, is a river that flows through southern England including London. At , it is the longest river entirely in England and the Longest rivers of the United Kingdom, se ...

would affect the levels of the river and change the movement of silt, although at that time no particular site had been chosen. Kendrick was asked to lead the project. This would lead to the creation of stations to monitor the measure and the studies were not complete until 1981. During the 1980s the HRS won a contract to do work to support a Mersey barrage. Kendrick was asked to lead this work. She retired in 1988 but the work did not end. For two hundred years Admirals would be appointed to the position of the

. Kendrick was to break this run when she became the acting conservator in 1988. It was her responsibility to keep the Mersey navigable for the port of

Liverpool Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. With a population of in 2019, it is the 10th largest English district by population and its metropolitan area is the fifth largest in the United Kingdom, with a popul ...

. She held that job for ten years. In 1983 she gave the

Verena Holmes Lecture Verena Winifred Holmes (23 June 1889 – 20 February 1964) was an English mechanical engineer and multi-field inventor, the first woman member elected to the Institution of Mechanical Engineers (1924) and the Institution of Locomotive Engineers ...

of the

Women's Engineering Society The Women's Engineering Society is a United Kingdom professional learned society and networking body for women engineers, scientists and technologists. It was the first professional body set up for women working in all areas of engineering, pred ...

concerning her work, having joined the organisation in the early 1970s. (She repeated the talk in Madrid at the ''International Symposium on El Paisaje del Agua'' in 1986). Kendrick died in

Henley-on-Thames Henley-on-Thames ( ) is a town and civil parish on the River Thames in Oxfordshire, England, northeast of Reading, west of Maidenhead, southeast of Oxford and west of London (by road), near the tripoint of Oxfordshire, Berkshire and Buc ...

in 2015.

Private life

Kendrick married Les Kendrick in 1951.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kendrick, Mary 1928 births 2015 deaths People from Nottingham British engineers Women's Engineering Society British women engineers