Harry John Fereday (1862-1939) of Rendel, Palmer and Tritton
1939 Obituary [1]
1940 Obituary [2]
BRIDGE engineers in all parts of the world will learn with deep regret that Mr. Harry J. Fereday, who until March, 1937, was a partner in the firm of Rendel, Palmer and Tritton, consulting civil engineers of Westminster, died on December 20th, 1939, at Epsom at the age of 76.
Harry John Fereday, the son of the late John William Fereday, was born at Wednesbury on December 26th, 1862, and was educated at Wolverhampton Grammar School, Finsbury, and the South-West London Technical College.
In 1880 he became a pupil at the Patent Shaft & Axletree Company, under the late Robert Braithwaite, later becoming assistant manager in the company's Old Park Bridge Yard. It is interesting to record that, whilst serving his pupilage, Mr. Fereday assisted in the manufacture of the first all-steel bridge sent to India - the Dufferin Bridge over the River Ganges.
In 1892 he left the Patent Shaft Company in order to become assistant engineer under the late Arnold Hills in the bridge yard of the Thames Ironworks.
Four years later, after a brief period as assistant engineer with Crompton and Co., Ltd., Mr. Fereday joined the late Sir Alexander M. Rendel, K.C.I .E ., then senior partner of Sir Alexander M. Rendel and Son (now Rendel, Palmer and Tritton), and continued in the service of the firm, first as a member of staff and from 1929 as partner, until his retirement in 1937. During the greater part of this period he was in charge of the firm's steel bridge department and was largely responsible for the design and supervision of hundreds of bridges dealt with by the firm in India and various parts of the world. Some of the more important of these were:-
The Khusalgarh Cantilever Bridge over the Indus; the Hardinge Bridge over the Ganges; the Attock Bridge over the Indus; the Willingdon Bridge over the Hooghly; the Lower Zambesi Bridge (the longest bridge in the world); the Chelsea Bridge over the Thames; and the New Howrah Bridge over the Hooghly, which is the longest cantilever road bridge in the world.
In 1917 Mr. Fereday designed and patented an optical stress recorder, known as the Fereday-Palmer Stress Recorder, which has been used extensively for recording stresses in steel structures under working conditions.
He was a member of the Institution of Civil Engineers and joint author of papers read before the Institution on "The Demolition of Waterloo Bridge," and "The Reconstruction of Chelsea Bridge."
Mr. Fereday will be remembered by bridge engineers all over the world, not only for his outstanding technical ability but also for his charming and modest personality.