REDPATH, HENRY ADENEY (1848–1908), biblical scholar, born at Sydenham on 19 June 1848, was eldest son of Henry Syme Redpath, solicitor, of Sydenham, by his wife Harriet Adeney of Islington. In 1857 he entered Merchant Taylors' School, and won a scholarship at Queen's College, Oxford, in 1867, taking a second class in classical moderations in 1869 and a third class in literæ humaniores in 1871, graduating B.A. in 1871, and proceeding M.A. in 1874 and D.Litt. in 1901. Ordained deacon in 1872 and priest in 1874, Redpath, after being curate of Southam, near Rugby, and then of Luddesdown, near Gravesend, was successively vicar of Wolvercote, near Oxford (1880–3), rector of Holwell, Sherborne (1883–90), and vicar of Sparsholt, with Kingston Lisle, near Wantage (1890–8). In 1898. by an exchange, he became rector of St. Dunstan-in-the-East, City. Redpath was sub-warden of the Society of Sacred Study in the diocese of London, and examining chaplain to the Bishop of London (1905–8).
Redpath, who had learned Hebrew at Merchant Taylors' School, specialised, while a country parson, in the Greek of the Septuagint, completing and publishing the work which Edwin Hatch [q. v.] left unfinished: 'A Concordance to the Septuagint and other Greek Translations of the Old Testament' (Oxford, 1892-1906, 3 vols.). The value of his work was recognised both here and on the Continent (cf. Adolf Deissmann, The Philology of the Greek Bible, 1908, pp. 69-78). Redpath was Grinfield lecturer on the Septuagint at Oxford (1901–5), and shortly before his death designed a 'Dictionary of Patristic Greek.'
As a biblical scholar he was conservative. He expounded his opposition to the 'critical' view of the Old Testament in 'Modern Criticism and the Book of Genesis' (1905), published by the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. An abler and more constructive work was his painstaking 'Westminster Commentary' on Ezekiel, with introduction and notes (1907). He was also a contributor to Hastings's 'Dictionary of the Bible' (1904, 4 vols.) and to the 'Illustrated Bible Dictionary.'
Redpath died at Sydenham on 24 Sept. 1908, and was buried at Shottermill, Surrey. He married at Marsh Caundle, Dorsetshire, on 5 Oct. 1886, Catherine Helen, daughter of Henry Peter Auber of Marsh Court, Sherborne. She died at Shottermill, on 26 Aug. 1898, leaving one son.
[The Times, 25 Sept. 1908; Guardian, 30 Sept. Reed and 7 Oct. 1908; C. J. Robinson, Merchant Taylors' School list; private information.]
REED, Sir EDWARD JAMES (1830–1906), naval architect and chief constructor of the navy, son of John Reed of Sheerness, was born there on 20 Sept. 1830, and after serving an apprenticeship with a ship-wright in Sheerness dockyard w«is chosen in 1849 to enter the school of mathematics and naval construction which had been established at Portsmouth in 1848 with Dr. John Woolley [q. v.] as its principal. After passing through the school he received in 1852 an appointment as super-numerary draughtsman in the mould loft at Sheemess, but finding his duties, which were of a routine nature and involved no responsibility, irksome, he left the admiralty service in the same year. Reed devoted his leisure at this time to writing poetry, and turned to technical journalism ; in 1853 he was offered and accepted the editorship of the 'Mechanic's Magazine.' In 1854 he submitted to the admiralty a design for a fast armour-clad frigate, but the need of such a type was not yet admitted and the design was refused. At the end of 1859 John Scott Russell [q. v.] called together a small body of naval architects, of whom Reed was one, in order to attempt the foundation of a technical society. The effort was immediately successful, and the Institution of Naval Architects was established early in 1860, Reed, who had been organising secretary from the first, being permanently appointed to the secretaryship. In 1862 he submitted to the admiralty designs for the conversion of wooden men-of-war into armour-clads on the belt and battery system, and was encouraged to proceed. The conversion of three ships was put in hand and carried out under Reed's supervision, and before their completion he was offered and accepted, in 1863, the post of chief constructor of the navy. With this appointment a new epoch of naval construction began. The earliest ironclads were very long and unhandy ships, mounting all their guns on the broadside. Reed's object was to produce shorter ships of greater handiness, and to develop their end-on fire without sacrificing their weight of broadside. The battle between guns and armour had already begun, and the demand on the one part for heavier armour and on the other for larger guns was insistent. The Bellerophon, the first ship designed by Reed after he took office, was typical of many others that followed, and marked a great advance
