Alexander Kennedy

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Sir Alexander Blackie William Kennedy (17 March 1847 – 1 November 1928) was a British civil engineer and academic. Kennedy's career began in shipbuilding as a draughtsman and he was one of the few people with a detailed knowledge of compound engines and twin screws. He became a leading expert in the field of boiler design and was appointed to the chair of Engineering at University College, London. Whilst lecturing he insisted his students gain a sound knowledge of the sciences so that they could understand why engineering theories worked. He also built the first engineering laboratory in the country so that his pupils could experience the practical side of the subject.

Upon leaving the university Kennedy became a consulting engineer, designing several large buildings in Britain and investigating oil concessions in America. He became an accomplished electrical engineer and designed the first power stations for many British towns as well as several hydro-electric power stations. He acted as electrical consultant to many railway and power supply companies before being asked by the Admiralty to investigate the Belleville boilers installed on Diadem class cruisers. This was the first in a long line of Admiralty commissions that he undertook which included work behind the front lines in France during the First World War.

Kennedy was an amateur photographer and served as president of The Camera Club as well as a keen climber and member of the Alpine Club. He also took an interest in the archeology of Petra in Jordan following the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. During his professional career he was acknowledged as a leading engineer, was a member of many institutions and received three honorary doctorates.

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[edit] Early life and works

Kennedy was born in Stepney, London to Reverend John Kennedy and Helen Stodart Blackie. His uncle on his mother's side was John Stuart Blackie the Scottish scholar. He received an education at the City of London School before taking a short course at the Royal School of Mines to give him a basic grounding in engineering. Kennedy was apprenticed into the shipbuilding firm of J and W Dudgeon of Millwall in 1864. He spent the next four years there working as a draughtsman and had a hand in the construction of the first ships with compound engines and twin screws. By the time he left in 1868 he was one of a few draughtsmen in the country with a thorough understanding of the workings of both systems. He put this understanding to good use when he joined Palmers' Engine Works of Jarrow on Tyne upon completion of his apprenticeship, he became the leading draughtsman and designed the first compound engine to be built in the north. Having spent three years with Palmers he worked for a short time for T.M. Tennant and Company of Leith as their chief draughtsman.

[edit] Partnership

In 1871 at the young age of 24 he was invited to become a partner of H.O. Bennett in Edinburgh. Over the next three years Kennedy was heavily involved with boiler design, building and testing. In 1873 he visited the Vienna Exhibition to study the boiler and engine designs exhibited there. He wrote a series of articles on several designs for the journal Engineering which were later reprinted in the official report on the exhibition made by the British Royal Commission.

[edit] Academic works

In 1874 aged only 27 he was appointed to the chair of Engineering at University College, London, a post he would hold for the next 15 years. He set about a series of changes that were to reform the way engineering was taught worldwide. He insisted that all of his students received not only lectures in engineering principles but also a firm grounding in mathematics, physics, chemistry, geology and the other sciences upon which engineering is based. He also asked that an engineering laboratory be built so that the students could have first hand experience of the applications of their theoretical studies. This proposal met widespread support from the engineering profession and the presidents of the Institution of Civil Engineers and the Institution of Mechanical Engineers were among the leading figures who supported it. In 1878 the laboratory was built and put to use, it was the first of its kind in the world and proved so useful that over the next nine years ten other educational institutions followed Professor Kennedy's example and built their own.

Whilst working at the UCL he translated Franz Rouleaux's Kinematics of Machinery into English for the first time in 1876. In 1886 he published Mechanics of Machinery, the first time that a book based on Rouleaux's kinematic analysis had been published in English. He also used the laboratory to carry out experiments to determine the strength and elasticity of various materials and was elected as a fellow of the Royal Society for this work in 1887. There followed a series of other experiments in which he investigated the strength of rivetted joints and the possibility of developing new electric turbines.

[edit] Consultancy

Kennedy found time outside of his academic works to establish an extensive concultancy business. His designs include the steel arched pier at Trouville-sur-Mer, the concrete structure and steelwork of the rebuilt Alhambra Theatre and the steelwork of the first Cecil Hotel. He made great use of his laboratory to test his materials and his designs were always valued for the hours of research he had invested in them.

During this period he was asked to investigate a remote oil concession in California which lay several days horse riding from the nearest road or railway. Kennedy had no riding experience and knew little about horses, however he immediately accepted the job and set about arranging riding classes in the mornings before he started lecturing. He soon became a very proficient rider and the trip to California proved a great success for Kennedy and the concession owners.

[edit] Electrical engineer

Kennedy left the University in 1889 and turned to electrical engineering, which he had researched during his academic career. His consultancy soon became famous for its works in this field. His first major contract was to design the supply system for the Westminster Electric Supply Corporation and he was retained by that corporation as their consultant engineer for the rest of his life. He also worked for the Central Electric Company and the St James and Pall Mall Electric Light Company. Many towns first electric generating stations were built to his designs including those of Edinburgh, Glasgow, Manchester, Belfast, Croydon, Carlisle, Kirkcaldy, Weymouth, Hartlepool, York and Rotherham. Kennedy was contracted to build two hydroelectric stations for the British Aluminium Company, their first at the Falls of Foyers in 1896 and a second at Kinlochleven in 1909.

Kennedy also acted as a consultant to several railway companies in the London area, particularly in regard to electrification and tram systems. He advised the London County Council with regard to their tram network and instigated their use of unusual underground conduits for their electricity supply. In 1896 he was appointed engineer to the Waterloo and City Railway and the electrical systems were designed to his specifications. He held consultancy contracts with the London and Home Counties Electricity Authority, London Power Company, Edinburgh Corporation and the Calcutta Electric Supply Corporation.

[edit] Admiralty work

In 1900 Kennedy was asked by The Admiralty to serve as a member of the Belleville Boiler Committee to investigate the installation of French designed Belleville boilers on Diadem class cruisers. There followed several more admiralty appointments, serving on the Machine Design Committee from 1900 to 1906, the Ordnance Board in 1909 and on the government committee for wireless telegraphy in 1913. During the First World War his skills were in great demand and he served on many committees including the Panel of the Munitions Inventions Department; as Chair of the Committee on Gunsights and Rangefinders; Vice Chairman of the Committee on Ordnance and Ammunition and as Vice-Chairman of the Anti-Aircraft Sub-Committee. As part of his duties he was required to visit the Western Front where he was distressed by the human suffering he saw there. He took many photographs of the effects of the war and later published these in his account of the war, Ypres to Verdun, in 1921.

After the war he was employed by the Ministry of Transport as chairman of the Electric Railway Advisory Committee.

[edit] Personal life

Kennedy had many hobbies and pastimes including photography, he was a member of The Camera Club and served as their president in 1890. He also maintained a keen interest in mountaineering, in particular the Alps mountain range, and was a member of the Alpine Club. He used his inaugural presidential address to the Institution of Civil Engineers to highlight the impact the profession had upon the environment. Kennedy published a revised edition of Alps in 1864 in 1902, illustrated with photographs he had taken of the area.

In 1922, at the age of 75, he visited the ruins of Petra in Jordan, then under British mandate, which had become much safer to visit after the partitioning of the Ottoman Empire following the First World War. The ruins fascinated him as an engineer and he returned the next year as the guest of Emir Abdullah. He returned for a third and final time in 1924 and was made a Pasha by the Emir. These excursions were taking their toll on his physical and mental health and he resigned himself to not visiting again. He published an account of the history of the area in his book Petra: its history and monuments published in 1925.

Kennedy married Elizabeth Verralls in 1874, with whom he fathered one daughter and two sons. Kennedy was widowed in 1911 and died at his home on 1 November 1928.

[edit] Societies and institutions

1878 - Member of Council of the Physical Society of London
1879 - Member of the Institution of Civil Engineers, member of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers
1887 - Fellow of the Royal Society
1890 - President of The Camera Club, member of the Institution of Electrical Engineers
1894 - President of the engineering section of the British Association, president of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers
1907 - President of the Institution of Civil Engineers[1]

[edit] Honorary awards

Doctor of Laws, Glasgow University
Doctor of Laws, Birmingham University
Doctor of Engineering, Liverpool University
Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh
Fellow of the Royal Society of New South Wales

[edit] References

  1. ^ Watson, Garth (1988), The Civils, London: Thomas Telford Ltd, p. 252, ISBN 0-727-70392-7