The New International Encyclopædia/Rennie, John (son)

RENNIE, Sir John (1794-1874) . An English civil engineer. He was born in London of a great engineering family, being a son of John Rennie (1761-1821), with whom he studied until 1813, when he became Hollingsworth's assistant on the Waterloo Bridge. With his father he worked on the Southwark Bridge in 1815, and after studying abroad went into partnership with his brother. John Rennie was knighted in 1831 on the completion of the London Bridge after his father's plans. He also finished his father's work as engineer to the Admiralty, building the Plymouth breakwater, and draining the Lincolnshire fens. The Whitehaven and Cardiff docks and the restoration of Boston harbor are the most important of his original works. Rennie was an able hydraulic engineer and author of Theory, Formation, and Construction of British and Foreign Harbors (1851-54). Consult his autobiography (London, 1875).