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1894-1895: Sir Alexander Blackie William Kennedy
Sir Alexander Blackie William Kennedy (1847-1928)
22nd President of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers
Kennedy was born in Stepney, England in 1847.
He served his apprenticeship of four and a half years with J & W Dudgeon, shipbuilders and marine engineers at Millwall. He then took up a position as leading draughtsman in the engine department of Palmers' Shipbuilding and Iron Company at Jarrow-on-Tyne. In 1871, he commenced practice as a consulting engineer in Edinburgh and Glasgow, in partnership with H O Bennett.
At the age of 27, he became Professor of Engineering at University College, London. Here he established the first college engineering laboratory. He continued to take on a great deal of consulting engineering work and in 1889 he resigned the professorship and devoted himself entirely to design and constructional work.
He carried out a large number of experiments on concrete beams and designed the steel and concrete structure of the Alhambra Theatre. He increasingly concentrated on electrical engineering and became Chief Engineer of the Westminster Electric Supply Company, Central Electric Company and the St James's and Pall Mall Electric Supply Company. He designed many provincial electricity generating stations, and was also associated with related undertakings such as the London County Council Tramways, the Waterloo and City Tube Railway, the electrified lines of the Great Western Railway and Southern Railway and the formation of the London Power Company.
As well as his technical papers, he also published several books of wide interest, including 'Ypres to Verdun', a series of lectures and photographs depicting the devastation caused by the First World War, and 'Petra: its History and Monuments'. The latter was an account of a journey of exploration undertaken at the age of 75, accompanied by photographs which he had taken.
He also had a great love of music and was a talented amateur musician.
He died in 1928.
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