The Dictionary of Australasian Biography/Kernot, William Charles

1399130The Dictionary of Australasian Biography — Kernot, William CharlesPhilip Mennell

Kernot, William Charles, M.A., C.E., Professor of Engineering at the Melbourne University, is the son of the late C. Kernot, M.L.A. for Geelong, in Victoria, who died in 1882. He was born at Rochford, Essex, in 1845, and went to Geelong with his parents in 1851. He matriculated at the Melbourne University in 1861, and graduated with honours in 1864, receiving his certificate of C.E. in 1866. From 1865 to 1867 he was in the Mining Department, and from 1867 to 1875 in the Victorian Water Supply. In 1868 he succeeded Mr. James Griffith as Lecturer on Surveying at the University. In 1869 he took up engineering lectures at the University, in addition to surveying; and in Jan. 1883 was appointed Professor of Engineering, which position he still holds. In 1874 he was chief of the photo-heliograph party at the Melbourne Observatory, in connection with the transit of Venus; and from 1875 to 1878 he took a friendly interest in the success of Mr. Brennan's now famous torpedo. In 1864 he was appointed a member of the Royal Commission on Railway Bridges for New South Wales, and two years later he reported on the Derwent Valley Railway Bridges, Tasmania, for the Tasmanian Government, and on underground telephone wires for the Victorian Government. In 1887 he presented to the University, as a Jubilee gift, the sum of £2000, to endow scholarships in physics and chemistry.