Difference between revisions of "John Rennie (1761-1821)"
| Line 38: | Line 38: | ||
The integrity of Mr Rennie in the fulfilment of his labours was equal to his genius in the contrivance of his plans and machinery. He would suffer none of the modern subterfuges for real strength to be resorted to by the contractors employed to execute what he had undertaken. Every thing, he did was for futurity, as well, as present advantage. | The integrity of Mr Rennie in the fulfilment of his labours was equal to his genius in the contrivance of his plans and machinery. He would suffer none of the modern subterfuges for real strength to be resorted to by the contractors employed to execute what he had undertaken. Every thing, he did was for futurity, as well, as present advantage. | ||
An engineer is not | An engineer is not like an architect. He has no commission on the amount of his expenditure; if he had, Mr Rennie would have been one of the most opulent men in England, for many millions have been expended under his eye. But his glory was in the justice of his proceeding, and his enjoyment in the success of his labours. | ||
It was only as a millwright that he engaged himself to execute the work he planned, and in this department society is indebted to him for economising the power of water, so as to give an increase of energy, by its specific gravity, to the natural fall of streams, and to make his mills equal to fourfold the produce of those which, before his time, depended solely on the impetus of the current. His mills of the greatest size work as smoothly as cloak-work, and, by the alternate contact of wood and iron, are less liable to the hazard of fire by friction. His mills, indeed, are models of perfection. | |||
If the death of such a man is a national loss what must it be to his private friends and to his amiable family? Endeared by all who knew him by the gentleness of his temper, the cheerfulness with which he communicated the riches of his mind, and forwarded the views of those who made useful discoveries or improvements in machinery or implements, procured him universal respect.- | |||
He gave to inventors all the benefits of his experience, removed difficulties which had not occurred to the author, or suggested alterations which adapted the instrument to its use. No jealousy nor self-interest ever prevented the exercise of this free and unbounded communication, for the love of science was superior in his mind to all mercenary feeling. | |||
Mr Rennie was born in Scotland, and from his earliest years devoted himself to the art of a civil engineer. He was the intimate friend and companion of his excellent countryman, the late Mr Watt; their habits and pursuits were similar. They worked together, and to their joint efforts are we chiefly indebted for the gigantic power of the steam-engine in all our manufactories. | |||
He married early in life Miss Mackintosh, a beautiful young woman, whom he had the misfortune to lose some years ago, but who left him an interesting and accomplished family. They have now to lament the loss of the best of parents, who, though possessed of a constitution and frame so robust as to give the promise of a very long life, sunk under an attack at the early age of 64. | |||
---- | ---- | ||
== See Also == | == See Also == | ||
<what-links-here/> | <what-links-here/> | ||
Revision as of 15:40, 3 December 2013
John Rennie (1761-1821)
1761 June 7th. Born at Phantassie, near East Linton, East Lothian, the youngest of the nine children of James Rennie (d. 1766), a farmer and owner of a brewery, and his wife, Jean, née Rennie (1720–1783).
1775–7 Attended Dunbar high school
A tinkerer and model builder even as a child, he first worked as a millwright with noted mechanical engineer Andrew Meikle (inventor of the threshing machine). Rennie then attended the University of Edinburgh (1780-1783) and began work as an engineer, employed by Boulton and Watt for five years at mill building, and working under James Watt from 1783. He was a pioneer in substituting cast iron for wood in structures, at Boulton and Watts' Albion Mills in London, 1789, but this was burnt down by arson in 1791.
In 1791, he moved to London and set up his own engineering business, having by then begun to expand into civil engineering. His early projects included the Lancaster Canal (started 1792), the Chelmer and Blackwater Navigation (1793), the Crinan Canal (1794) and the Kennet and Avon Canal (also started 1794) along with a drainage scheme for draining the Norfolk Fens (1802-1810).
Over the next few years he became a famous bridge-builder, combining stone with new cast-iron techniques to create previously unheard-of low, wide elliptical arches, at Leeds Bridge, and in London at Waterloo Bridge (1811-1817), with its nine equal arches and perfectly flat roadway (thought to be influenced by Thomas Harrison's design of Skerton Bridge over the River Lune in Lancaster), and Southwark Bridge (1815-1819).
Rennie was also responsible for designing and building docks at Hull, Liverpool, Greenock and Leith and improving the harbours and dockyards at Portsmouth, Chatham and Devonport. Rennie's last project was London Bridge, still under construction when he died in 1821 but completed by his son, also John Rennie. His other son was George Rennie.
1821 October 4th. Died.[1]
1821 October 16th. He was buried in St Paul's Cathedral. Full details. Mourners include his four sons and many other known names.[2]
1821 November. Obituary.[3]
1821 Obituary.[4]
The death of J. Rennie, Esq. os a national calamity. His loss cannot be adequately supplied by any living artist, for, though we have many able engineers, We know of none who so eminently possess solidity of judgment with profound knowledge, and the happy tact of applying to every situation, where he was called upon to exert his faculties, the precise form of remedy that was wanting to the existing evil
Whether it was to stem the torrent and violence of the most boisterous sea - to make new harbours, or to render those safe which were before dangerous or inaccessible - to redeem districts of fruitful land from encroachment by the ocean, or to deliver them from the pestilence of stagnant marsh - to level hills, or to tie them together by aqueducts or arches, or by embankment to raise the valley between them - to make bridges that for beauty surpass all others, and for strength seemed destined to endure to the latest posterity, Mr Rennie had no rival.
Every part of the United Kingdom possesses monuments to his glory, and they are stupendous as they are useful. They will present to our children's children objects of admiration for their grandeur, and of gratitude to the author for their utility.
Compare the works of Mr Rennie with the most boasted exploits of the French engineers, and remark how they tower above them. Look at the breakwater at Plymouth, in comparison with the cassoons at Cherburg - any one of his canals with that of Ourke, and his Waterloo bridge with that of Neuilly. Their superiority is acknowledged by every liberal Frenchmen.
He cultivated his art with the most enthusiastic ardour, and, instead of being merely a theorist, he prepared himself for practical efficiency by visiting, and minutely inspecting every work of magnitude in every country that bear similitude with those which he might he called on to construct, and his library abounds in the richest collection of scientific writings of that of any individual.
The loss of such a man is irreparable. Cut off in the full vigour of his mind, his death seems to suspend for a time the march of national improvement, until the just fame of his merit shall animate our rising artists to imitate his great example, and to prepare themselves by study and observation to overcome, as he did, the most formidable impediments to the Progress of human enterprise, of industry, and of increased facility in all the arts of life.
The integrity of Mr Rennie in the fulfilment of his labours was equal to his genius in the contrivance of his plans and machinery. He would suffer none of the modern subterfuges for real strength to be resorted to by the contractors employed to execute what he had undertaken. Every thing, he did was for futurity, as well, as present advantage.
An engineer is not like an architect. He has no commission on the amount of his expenditure; if he had, Mr Rennie would have been one of the most opulent men in England, for many millions have been expended under his eye. But his glory was in the justice of his proceeding, and his enjoyment in the success of his labours.
It was only as a millwright that he engaged himself to execute the work he planned, and in this department society is indebted to him for economising the power of water, so as to give an increase of energy, by its specific gravity, to the natural fall of streams, and to make his mills equal to fourfold the produce of those which, before his time, depended solely on the impetus of the current. His mills of the greatest size work as smoothly as cloak-work, and, by the alternate contact of wood and iron, are less liable to the hazard of fire by friction. His mills, indeed, are models of perfection.
If the death of such a man is a national loss what must it be to his private friends and to his amiable family? Endeared by all who knew him by the gentleness of his temper, the cheerfulness with which he communicated the riches of his mind, and forwarded the views of those who made useful discoveries or improvements in machinery or implements, procured him universal respect.-
He gave to inventors all the benefits of his experience, removed difficulties which had not occurred to the author, or suggested alterations which adapted the instrument to its use. No jealousy nor self-interest ever prevented the exercise of this free and unbounded communication, for the love of science was superior in his mind to all mercenary feeling.
Mr Rennie was born in Scotland, and from his earliest years devoted himself to the art of a civil engineer. He was the intimate friend and companion of his excellent countryman, the late Mr Watt; their habits and pursuits were similar. They worked together, and to their joint efforts are we chiefly indebted for the gigantic power of the steam-engine in all our manufactories.
He married early in life Miss Mackintosh, a beautiful young woman, whom he had the misfortune to lose some years ago, but who left him an interesting and accomplished family. They have now to lament the loss of the best of parents, who, though possessed of a constitution and frame so robust as to give the promise of a very long life, sunk under an attack at the early age of 64.
See Also
Sources of Information
[1] Wikipedia