Adolph Friedrich Lindemann

Adolph Friedrich Lindemann (13 May 1846 – 25 August 1931) was a German-born British engineer, businessman, and amateur astronomer who was involved in the Transatlantic telegraph cable project. He was also the father of Frederick Lindemann, a physicist who served as an advisor to Winston Churchill during World War II.

Life Lindemann was born in the Palatinate to a Roman Catholic family established in Alsace-Lorraine under the Comte de Lindemann, who had married into the Cyprien-Fabre shipping family. Lindemann married Olga Noble (1851 – c. 1927), herself heiress to a wealthy New London, Connecticut, engineering family of British origin, and the widow of a banker named Davidson by whom she had produced three children. Olga was reputedly "vivacious and beautiful". ). Olga inherited a mansion near Sidmouth, He was also elected a fellow of the Royal Meteorological Society on 19 March 1884.

Family The couple had a daughter and three sons, the second of whom, Frederick, was to become a famed physicist, and World War II adviser to Sir Winston Churchill. The youngest brother, Septimus, became something of a playboy on the French Riviera but became a notable agent for the intelligence services in World War II. Adolph's only daughter (he had two stepdaughters by his wife's previous marriage), Linda, became a short story writer and playwright, writing under a pseudonym to avoid family disapproval. One of her plays, The Man in the Case, was censored. Her granddaughter is novelist Salley Vickers, and her great-grandson Rupert Kingfisher, the children's writer of Madame Pamplemousse. Olga was a Protestant and insisted on the children being raised in the Anglican Church.

Legacy The minor planet 828 Lindemannia is named for him.