The Life and Works of John Rennie (7 June 1761 – 4 October 1821)

John Rennie's Projects

Beginnings

Mike Chrimes

Tens of thousands of visitors to the cultural sites of London’s South bank, and many just enjoying the Thames walk at Bankside will have noticed…

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Roland Paxton

The purpose of this publication is to provide a contemporary impression of the life and work
of the eminent civil engineer John Rennie FRSE [1788]…

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Dermot O’Dwyer

John Rennie (1761-1821) was one of the most important engineers working in the UK in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century. His fame arises from…

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Roland Paxton

RENNIE, John, a celebrated civil engineer, was the youngest son of a respectable farmer at Phantassie, in the parish of Prestonkirk, and county of East. Lothian…

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Bridges

Sandra Purves

In 1797 the bridge over the river Tweed in Kelso partially collapsed and was washed away. A tremendous & violent storm that had started at…

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Alison Cable

By the 1730s, the first and second arches of the medieval bridge at Rochester over the River Medway in Kent were perilously close to collapse…

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Sue Threader

Rennie’s Waterloo Bridge across the Thames in London, completed in 1817 was considered by some to be his career masterpiece, described as ‘perhaps the finest…

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Ian Anderson

The first mention of a bridge at Boston was in a petition of 1305 granted to allow the levy of tolls on goods carried over…

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Ian Hoult

Fosdyke is a village in Lincolnshire near the mouth of the River Welland, where that river empties into The Wash, about miles south of Boston…

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Derek Elder

Musselburgh New Bridge is a fine example of a Rennie bridge and one of his Scottish bridges that were influential in his later designs for…

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Canals & Drainage

Patrick Davies

Perhaps unsurprisingly, after the passing of a couple of centuries, the full role that John Rennie played in the building of the Aberdeenshire Canal is…

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Ian Anderson

It took 120 years from the first proposal in 1677 for a navigation between Chelmsford and Maldon until the works were complete, due mainly to…

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Peter Cross-Rudkin & Ian Anderson

The East & West Fens, a 93 square mile tract lying between Boston & the Wolds to the north, were the major area of fen…

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Robert E Atkinson

At the beginning of the 18th Century Lancaster was a prosperous town with numerous small tradesmen who, by the end of the century, were calling…

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Richard Thomas

An interesting development occurred in 1803 which, though not initiated by the Trustees of the Lea, their agreement, perhaps reluctantly, would have had to be…

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Chris Hudson

The Lune Aqueduct was one of John Rennie’s earliest bridge designs, built between 1793 and 1797. It carries the Lancaster Canal (1792-1803) over the…

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Peter Cross-Rudkin

The River Gipping was navigated occasionally in mediaeval times, and a proposal was made in the early-18th century to make it regularly navigable. That…

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River Gipping Trust

The Stowmarket Navigation in Suffolk was almost certainly the first project to be constructed under John Rennie’s design and direction on his own account as…

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Ian Anderson

The Cambridgeshire Lodes are a series of man-made waterways, believed to be Roman in origin, located in the county of Cambridgeshire. The term “lode”…

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Sue Threader

By 1723, the small river Kennet which joined the Thames near Reading, had been made navigable upstream to Newbury. Five years later, the Bristol Avon…

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Victoria Owens

By 1723, the small river Kennet which joined the Thames near Reading had been made navigable upstream to Newbury. Five years later, the Bristol Avon…

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David Newman

The spectacular descent of the Caen Hill flight of locks in Devizes is one of the most impressive sights along the Kennet and Avon (K&A)…

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David Newman & Nicholas Hopkins

It has long been known that the Great Western Railway drew water from the Kennet & Avon Canal in order to service the steam locomotives…

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Peter Turvey & Ian Broom

The Grade-1 listed summit pumping station at Crofton on the Kennet & Avon Canal dates from 1807-9 and is a unique survivor of a once-common…

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Reproduced by kind permission of the Smeatonian Society of Civil Engineers.

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Coastal Works, Ports and Harbours

Gordon Masterton

In the ICE’s John Rennie archives there are three letters to Thomas Bruce, the 7th Earl of Elgin written between 1807 and 1808 with proposals…

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Prof/Dr Roland Paxton MBE FICE FRSE

Scotland’s Bell Rock Lighthouse ranks as one of the greatest civil engineering maritime achievements. The lighthouse, erected from 1807-11 in the North Sea, about 12…

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Sandra Purves

The estuary of the Water of Leith has offered shelter to shipping at all periods of the past. Quay walls were erected along the banks…

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Helen Nattrass

As a Canterbury resident, I make a trip over to Margate maybe half a dozen times a year. Until today, my visits to Margate’s Harbour…

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Sue Threader

Bathing in the sea became popular during the early eighteenth century for both recreation and its perceived medicinal benefits. At this time Margate was a…

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Mark Watson

The stacks of warehouses between Commercial Street and Old East Dock in Leith repeat the form of John Rennie’s London Docks (1801-06) in Wapping…

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Stephen Jones

The natural harbour (now the Milford Haven Waterway) at the mouth of the River Cleddau in south west Wales offered shelter from the prevailing winds…

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Eleanor Knowles

The offshore breakwater across Plymouth Sound is John Rennie’s most southerly British work, and strategically one of the most important. Rennie’s structures were built to…

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William Allsop

At a distance of only 21 miles from Ireland, the port of Portpatrick on the west coast of Scotland had been hosting irregular ferry services…

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Mark Samuel

The Dry Dock at Ramsgate has been believed for a long time to be the work of John Smeaton, however recent research for Thanet District…

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Jenny Bruce

Plans, ink drawings and notebooks of detailed engineering are some of the surviving artefacts that are evidence of John Rennie’s projects in the late 18th…

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Elizabeth Shotton

By the time John Rennie (1761-1821) was contracted by the Irish Revenue Commissioners to extend the docks and stores for the Dublin Custom House…

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Secure berths for loading and unloading at all states of the tide have always been essential to London’s shipping trade. London was an active port…

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Posthumous

Sue Threader

It’s fairly common knowledge that the fascia of the previous London Bridge, conceived by Rennie but with detail design and construction by his son, Sir…

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Carol Morgan

As a consulting engineer active for over 35 years, Rennie produced hundreds of reports for a range of clients. This has resulted in reports, maps…

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John Rennie’s eldest son George Rennie created a notebook of accurate drawing of many of his father’s works. The notebook is held in the archive…

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