Dictionary of National Biography, 1927 supplement/Rendel, Alexander Meadows
RENDEL, Sir ALEXANDER MEADOWS RENDEL (1829–1918), civil engineer, the eldest of the four sons of James Meadows Rendel [q.v.], by his wife, Catherine Jane Harris, was born at Plymouth 3 April 1829. The family connexion with engineering is notable, for Rendel's father was a distinguished member of that profession, and his three brothers were associated for many years with Lord Armstrong's firm at Newcastle-upon-Tyne. One of them, George Wightwick Rendel [q.v.], was for a short time a civil lord of the Admiralty; another, Stuart Rendel, was raised to the peerage as Baron Rendel in 1894. Alexander Rendel was educated at King's School, Canterbury, and at Trinity College, Cambridge, of which he was a scholar. He was thirty-third wrangler in the mathematical tripos of 1851. He then became an assistant to his father, whose premature death in 1856 obliged him at the early age of twenty-seven to take over the control of the practice. He was responsible for much work in connexion with docks and harbours. As engineer to the London Dock Company he designed the large extension to the Victoria dock now known as the Royal Albert dock (1875). The Albert dock (1863–1867) and Edinburgh dock (1874–1881) for the Leith harbour and dock commissions are other important undertakings of his in this branch of engineering.
Rendel's main work, however, was done in connexion with Indian railways. He paid his first visit to India in 1857, the year of the Mutiny, when there were scarcely any railways in the country. During his early association with the East Indian Railway, as consulting engineer, he reorganized completely the tariff of passenger fares and freight rates, basing these charges on the cost per mile run. As a result the East Indian was the only railway in India to show profits on its working. His success attracted the attention of the India Office, and in 1872 he was appointed consulting engineer to the Indian State Railways. In this capacity he did admirable service, acting often in conjunction with his close friend Sir Richard Strachey [q.v.], who was for many years a member of the council of India. Rendel was responsible for designing many railway bridges in India. Two of the most important of these were the Lansdowne bridge over the Indus at Sukkur, opened in 1889, and at that time the largest cantilever bridge in existence, and the Hardinge bridge over the Ganges, completed in 1915. Nor was it only as an engineer that Rendel's assistance was valuable, for his advice was sought also upon the many administrative and commercial questions which affected the development of the railway system in India.
Rendel acted singly as a consulting engineer in London until 1888, when he took one of his sons and Mr. F. E. Robertson into partnership. Other partners were added later, and at the time of his death his firm was known as Rendel, Palmer, and Tritton. He was created K.C.I.E. in 1887. He died in London 23 January 1918.
Rendel married in 1853 Eliza (died 1916), eldest daughter of Captain William Hobson, R.N., the first governor of New Zealand, by whom he had five sons and three daughters.
[The Times, 25 January 1918; Engineering, 1 February 1918; The Engineer, 1 February 1918; private information.]