Nathaniel Beardmore

Nathaniel Beardmore (19 March 1816 – 24 August 1872) was a British civil engineer known for his textbook on hydraulic engineering, and his work on water projects associated with the River Lea.

Life and career Beardmore was born on 19 March 1816 in Nottingham, England. He began his professional education as a pupil to Plymouth architect George Wightwick, and subsequently apprenticed to the well-known civil engineer James Meadows Rendel (1799-1856). He later became a partner in Rendel's engineering practice, for which he prepared surveys and drawings of railways, roads, bridges and harbors, worked on water supplies in both Scotland and England, and to a lesser extent worked on railroad projects. His partnership with Rendel ceased amicably in 1848, and Beardmore in 1850 became the sole engineer for the drainage and navigation works on the River Lea. In 1854 he was awarded a Telford Medal by the Institution of Civil Engineers for his paper 'Description of the Navigation and Drainage Works, recently executed on the Tidal portion of the River Lea'.

A man of diverse talents and many interests, he was elected a Fellow of the Geological Society of London (1848), and a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society (1858). He was also elected a member of the Institution of Civil Engineers (1846), and a member of the Royal Meteorological Society (1851), serving in 1861 and 1862 as president of the latter society.

Frances Mary Beardmore (1843–1926) married the popular poet and essayist Henry Austin Dobson (1840–1921). Nathaniel St. Bernard Beardmore (1848–1885) followed his father as a civil engineer and was his assistant on various projects, including some associated with the River Lea. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, and of the Royal Meteorological Society, as well as a Member of the Geologists' Association. Rev. Henry Leslie Beardmore, M.A. (1855–1933) was Rector of Ripple, Kent, and later Rector of St. Peter's Church, Mawdesley with Bispham, Lancashire.