- Rennie, John
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[br]b. 7 June 1761 Phantassie, East Linton, East Lothian, Scotlandd. 4 October 1821 Stamford Street, London, England[br]Scottish civil engineer.[br]Born into a prosperous farming family, he early demonstrated his natural mechanical and structural aptitude. As a boy he spent a great deal of time, often as a truant, near his home in the workshop of Andrew Meikle. Meikle was a millwright and the inventor of a threshing machine. After local education and an apprenticeship with Meikle, Rennie went to Edinburgh University until he was 22. He then travelled south and met James Watt, who in 1784 offered him the post of Engineer at the Albion Flour Mills, London, which was then under construction. Rennie designed all the mill machinery, and it was while there that he began to develop an interest in canals, opening his own business in 1791 in Blackfriars. He carried out work on the Kennet and Avon Canal and in 1794 became Engineer for the company. He meanwhile carried out other surveys, including a proposed extension of the River Stort Navigation to the Little Ouse and a Basingstoke-to-Salisbury canal, neither of which were built. From 1791 he was also engaged on the Rochdale Canal and the Lancaster Canal, as well as the great masonry aqueduct carrying the latter canal across the river Lune at Lancaster. He also surveyed the Ipswich and Stowmarket and the Chelmer and Blackwater Navigations. He advised on the Horncastle Canal in 1799 and on the River Ancholme in 1799, both of which are in Lincolnshire. In 1802 he was engaged on the Royal Canal in Ireland, and in the same year he was commissioned by the Government to prepare a plan for flooding the Lea Valley as a defence on the eastern approach to London in case Napoleon invaded England across the Essex marshes. In 1809 he surveyed improvements on the Thames, and in the following year he was involved in a proposed canal from Taunton to Bristol. Some of his schemes, particularly in the Fens and Lincolnshire, were a combination of improvements for both drainage and navigation. Apart from his canal work he engaged extensively in the construction and development of docks and harbours including the East and West India Docks in London, Holyhead, Hull, Ramsgate and the dockyards at Chatham and Sheerness. In 1806 he proposed the great breakwater at Plymouth, where work commenced on 22 June 1811.He was also highly regarded for his bridge construction. These included Kelso and Musselburgh, as well as his famous Thames bridges: London Bridge (uncompleted at the time of his death), Waterloo Bridge (1810–17) and Southwark Bridge (1815–19). He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1798.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsFRS 1798.Further ReadingC.T.G.Boucher, 1963, John Rennie 1761–1821, Manchester University Press. W.Reyburn, 1972, Bridge Across the Atlantic, London: Harrap.JHB
Biographical history of technology. - Taylor & Francis e-Librar. Lance Day and Ian McNeil. 2005.
