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 t ...

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 Term ...

line between

Mumbai Mumbai (, ; also known as Bombay — List of renamed Indian cities and states#Maharashtra, the official name until 1995) is the capital city of the Indian States and union territories of India, state of Maharashtra and the ''de facto'' fin ...

and

Pune Pune (; ; also known as Poona, ( the official name from 1818 until 1978) is one of the most important industrial and educational hubs of India, with an estimated population of 7.4 million As of 2021, Pune Metropolitan Region is the largest i ...

in 1863. Alice Pickering was born in

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

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

Leeds Leeds () is a city and the administrative centre of the City of Leeds district in West Yorkshire, England. It is built around the River Aire and is in the eastern foothills of the Pennines. It is also the third-largest settlement (by popula ...

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, constructing the section between Sholapur and Gulbarga. 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 ( ) is a Counties of England, county in the English Channel, off the coast of Hampshire, from which it is separated by the Solent. It is the List of islands of England#Largest islands, largest and List of islands of England#Mo ...

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 Railway officers in British India 19th-century British businesspeople