the Prussian government on a naval establishment at Heppens on the river Jade; and in 1854–5, by direction of the Hamburg senate, he inspected the Elbe from Hamburg to Cuxhaven. He also devised a system of railways for the country between Madrid and Oviedo, as well as improvements of the river Ebro.
In England his railway work was somewhat restricted, but he executed the Birkenhead, Lancashire, and Cheshire Junction line, and in India he directed the construction of the East Indian and the Madras railways. In 1856 he reported on the new Westminster Bridge. His last work was a design for the suspension bridge across the ornamental water in St. James's Park, London.
In 1852 and 1853 Rendel served as president of the Institution of Civil Engineers, which he joined in 1824. He became a fellow of the Royal Society on 23 Feb. 1843, and was elected a member of the council. He died at 10 Kensington Palace Gardens, London, on 21 Nov. 1856.
Rendel was a man of great energy, and implicit confidence was felt in his efficiency, tact, and honesty. His greatest enterprises were the construction of the harbours at Holyhead and Portland—works which go some way to justify the linking of his name with Smeaton, Rennie, and Telford. A portrait of Rendel by W. Boxall, R.A., belonged in 1868 to Mrs. Rendel (Cat. Third Exhib. Nat. Portraits, No. 472).
Rendel contributed several valuable papers to the ‘Proceedings’ of the Institution of Civil Engineers. He married Catherine Jane Harris, who died on 18 July 1884, aged 87. His third son, Stuart Rendel, at one time managing partner in London of Sir William Armstrong's engineering firm, was M.P. for Montgomeryshire from 1880–94, and was raised to the peerage as Lord Rendel in 1895.
[Minutes of Proceedings of Institution of Civil Engineers, 1857, xvi. 133–42; Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, 1857, viii. 279–283; D. Stevenson's Life of R. Stevenson, 1878, p. 151; Times, 22 Nov. 1856, p. 12; Gent. Mag. 1857, i. 114–15.]
RENDER, WILLIAM (fl. 1800), grammarian and translator, was a native of Germany. He was a fellow student at Giessen University with a brother of Charlotte (‘Werther's’ innamorata), and was well acquainted with Werther himself. In an appendix to his English version of Goethe's romance, Render relates a conversation he had with Werther at Frankfort-on-the-Main a few days before the latter's suicide. Render was ordained to the Lutheran ministry. Subsequently he acted as ‘travelling guardian to the son of a distinguished personage.’ He then travelled in western Germany with ‘several English gentlemen,’ one of whom may have been Francis, afterwards the Marquis Hastings, to whom, as Earl of Moira, he dedicated his ‘Tour through Germany.’ Render came to England about 1790, and settled in London. He taught German and other languages ‘in several families of distinction.’ Towards the end of the century he also became ‘teacher of German’ at Cambridge, Oxford, and Edinburgh. In 1798 he published an English version of Kotzebue's play ‘Count Benyowsky,’ which reached a second edition within the year (cf. Biogr. Dram. ii. 133). In 1800 Render further translated ‘The Robbers,’ ‘Don Carlos,’ ‘Maria Stuart,’ and ‘The Armenian’ of Schiller. In the following year appeared his version of ‘The Sorrows of Werther,’ the first translation into English made direct from the original German. In the preface he speaks of ‘his friend the baron Goethe,’ whom he may have met at Frankfort. Render's ‘Tour through Germany, particularly along the Banks of the Rhine, Mayne,’ &c., also appeared in 1801, in two octavo volumes. A vocabulary of familiar phrases in German and English is annexed for the benefit of travellers. The remainder of Render's publications were educational manuals. The chief of these, ‘A concise Practical Grammar of the German Tongue’ (1799), was very successful. A fifth edition, corrected and augmented with improvements made by the Berlin Academy, was issued in 1817. As a token of his appreciation of the work, Alexander I of Russia ordered Woronzow, his ambassador in England, to present Render with a ring and an autograph letter. Render also published German ‘Exercises,’ a ‘Pocket Dictionary’ in English and German, and other manuals of instruction in German.
A portrait of Render, engraved by Mackenzie from a drawing by Dighton, is prefixed to his ‘Recreations’ (Ergötzungen) in English and German (1806).
[Prefaces and Appendices to Works; Dict. of Living Authors, 1816; Allibone's Dict. Engl. Lit. ii. 1771.]
RENDLE, JOHN (1758–1815), divine, was born at Tiverton in 1758, and was educated at Blundell's school there. At school he showed a marked proficiency in classics, and won a scholarship which enabled him to proceed to Sidney-Sussex College, Cambridge. There he graduated B.A. in 1781, was appointed lecturer in mathematics, and
