96 



JOHN RENNIE, F.R.S. L. and E., &c. 



Born June 7, 1761. Died October 4, 1821. 



John Eennie was born at Phantassie, in the parish of Prestonkirk, 

 in the county of East Lothian. His father was a highly respect- 

 able farmer, who died in 1766, leaving a widow and nine children, 

 of whom John was the youngest. He acquired the first rudiments 

 of his education at the village school, which was situated on the 

 opposite side of a brook. To cross this at certain seasons of the 

 year it was necessary to make use of a boat, which was kept at the 

 workshop of Andrew Meikle, an ingenious mechanic well known in 

 Scotland as the inventor of the threshing machine. Young Rennie, 

 having thus frequent occasion to pass through Meikle's workshop, 

 became deeply interested in the various mechanical operations that 

 were in progress, and a great pail of his leisure and holiday time 

 was spent therein. During the evening he employed himself in 

 imitating the machines which had particularly attracted his atten- 

 tion, and when only ten years old succeeded in constructing a 

 model of a steam-engine, a windmill, and a pile-driving machine. 

 At twelve years of age he left the Preston school and entered the 

 service of Mr. Meikle for a space of two years, at the end of which 

 time, finding that a constant application to manual labour retarded 

 the progress of his intellectual faculties, he determined to place 

 himself under the tuition of Mr. Gibson, an eminent mathematical 

 master at Dunbar. Here Young Rennie attained such proficiency 

 in his studies, that when, two or three years afterwards, Mr. Gibson 

 was appointed master to the public academy at Perth, he was able 

 to undertake the temporary management of the Dunbar school. 

 While at this school he attracted the especial notice of Mr. David 

 Lock, who, in describing a visit to Dunbar, makes particular men- 

 tion of him as one likely to prove an honour to his country.* On 

 leaving Mr. Gibson, Rennie returned to Mr. Meikle, continuing 

 more or less with that ingenious man for the next two or three 

 years. j- His first essay in practical mechanics was the repairing of 

 a corn mill in his native village, and he erected two or three others 

 before he had reached the age of eighteen. While occupied in these 

 works Rennie took care at the same time to attend to his other 

 studies, managing occasionally to visit Edinburgh, where he entered 

 himself as a student at the University, and attended the lectures of 



* Lock's Essays on tlie Trade and Commerce, Manufactories and Fisheries, of 

 Scotland, 1779. 3 vols. 



f According to an article published in the Mechanics' Magazine, Sept. 20, 

 1861, Mr. Rennie appears likewise to have attended the collegiate academy at 

 Perth. The above brief account of his early life is given on the authority of a 

 Memoir furnished by Mr. George Eennie, F.K.S., and published in the Ency- 

 clopaedia Britannica. 



