Autobiography of Sir John Rennie, F.R.S., Past President of the Institute of Civil Engineers / Comprising the history of his professional life, together with reminiscences dating from the commencement of the century to the present time.

by Sir John Rennie

On board the steamer I made acquaintance with Lieutenant Conolly, who intended to take the route from St. Petersburg overland to India—a particularly difficult and dangerous journey; but Conolly was an intelligent, ardent, and courageous person, anxious for information, and ambitious to explore a route which had hardly ever been undertaken before; but he unfortunately fell a victim to his ambition. He was a little man, determined and energetic, capable of undergoing great fatigue, and a very agreeable and sociable companion. He and I took to each other and became great friends, and entertained the pleasing idea of meeting again after his return from India; but this never took place, for he was murdered with his companions.

Conolly and I got our luggage together as soon as possible after landing, and drove to the Grand Hotel, which was then a sort of barrack or caravanserai, near the Newski Prospect. Before seeing the city, I presented the various letters of introduction with which I had been provided; amongst others were several from my old friend, Chevalier Benkausen, the Russian Consul-General in London.

I first called upon Lord Heytesbury, our ambassador, whom I had previously known as Mr. Abbott, at Naples, by whom I was most cordially welcomed. I also waited upon all the authorities, and was well received by them; but the person to whom I was most indebted was my friend, General Wilson, a sensible Scotchman, who had entered the Civil Service of the Government, as engineer to the cotton, gun, and general iron manufactures, for which he had erected a large establishment at Kolpnau, about 13 or 14 miles from St. Petersburg. This place I visited with him; it was very complete, for the Emperor Nicholas, who was at times very fond of Englishmen and everything English, had taken Wilson and his establishment under his especial protection, and had given him authority to incur any reasonable expenditure to make it perfect. Wilson, therefore, imported the newest and most improved machines and tools of every kind from England, and obtained also the best of English workmen. The cotton manufactories were upon a most extensive and imposing scale; in fine buildings, with hosts of employés, they were conducted in the true imperial style, that is, with great show, but little profit. Still, they were not without their advantages; they were the means of training a set of native workmen, who, although not inventive, are excellent imitators, consequently after a time their services must have been valuable. The same may be said of the iron manufactories, particularly as Russia has some of the richest iron mines, and they only require skilled workmen to develop them to their utmost; Wilson contributed materially towards this; and it was impossible to have selected a better man for this purpose. He possessed a calm even temper, firm, but just, and conciliating, with a competent knowledge of what he undertook to perform, without possessing any considerable amount of invention. He spoke the Russian language like a native, besides French and German. He therefore most justly possessed a good deal of influence, and was thoroughly liked and respected, from the humblest workman under his orders up to the Emperor, who was very fond of him. Lastly, he was thoroughly honest, a rare thing in Russia in those days, where peculation was rife from the highest to the lowest; and if Wilson had followed the universal example, which he might have done with impunity, he would have made a large fortune; but after many years’ service he died comparatively poor. Although anything but a military man, he was a general in the Russian service, and was decorated with several stars and orders. All persons officially employed like Wilson had military rank; he concealed this as much as he could; but in St. Petersburg he was always obliged to wear uniform, and as there were guardhouses in almost every street, whenever he passed the guard turned out to salute him, which annoyed him much.

There was another remarkable Scotchman, of the name of Baird, with whom I made acquaintance. He was, however, a totally different character—a shrewd, intelligent, clever, active, indefatigable person, wholly devoted to making money. He was in constant communication with England; and as soon as a patent was taken out there for any new invention, if it was applicable in Russia he at once imported and patented it, and thus obtained a monopoly. He cultivated, with the greatest tact and assiduity, all the officials, from the highest to the lowest, as well as all persons of any influence, and had a thorough understanding with them, particularly with the police and officers of customs; thus he contrived to gain the greatest influence, and secured almost a monopoly of everything worth having. If ever the Government was desirous of contracting for any large work, Baird was almost sure of obtaining it, at the best price. Whether his numerous friends were interested in the profits resulting from these multifarious undertakings is best known to himself; but according to the ordinary practice of human nature, particularly in Russia at that time, everybody endeavoured to make the most he could, and it is probable that there was no exception in this case; but suffice to say that Baird made a very large fortune, with which he retired to his native country; and we must not omit to mention that Baird, whilst benefiting himself, was of the greatest service to Russia, and tended materially to advance her prosperity by the numerous valuable inventions he introduced, and by training the natives, and inciting them and urging them to make all sorts of improvements, which, without such a man, would never have been undertaken, so that nobody grudged his wealth, and he left the country to which he had been a real benefactor universally liked and esteemed. As to myself, personally, I feel much indebted to him; through his kindness I had the opportunity of knowing many persons and seeing many things which otherwise would have been out of my power.

I frequently dined at the cafés and restaurants when not otherwise engaged, and at some of the best of them met persons of the first class, who were always very well bred and polite. One day I dined at one of the best table d’hôtes, when several persons of high rank were present, and amongst them a young naval officer of good family. Amongst other subjects of conversation, the recent taking of Varna came forward, and the naval officer seemed to speak rather disparagingly of it. I observed one of the superior waiters looking at him and listening attentively for some time, then he quietly went up to him and whispered a few words in his ear, which my neighbour told me was an order to hold his tongue, for such conversation would not be allowed. The fact was that all these waiters were employed by, or in the pay of, the police, and all conversations were reported. The young naval officer held his tongue immediately, and the party broke up very shortly afterwards, and I was told that the matter would not end there. I took the hint also, for nothing was more dangerous than to talk politics, and I avoided them ever after.

In considering the position of St. Petersburg, it is, perhaps, difficult to find a more inconvenient and unhealthy spot for a great seaport town than that chosen for the Russian capital, at the mouth of the Neva, at the head of the Gulf of Finland, where there is no tide, and where the greatest depth over the bar is only seven feet, so that none but vessels of a small class can ascend the river. Hence, though within the bar there is ample depth of water at all times, large mercantile vessels are obliged to stop at Cronstadt, seven miles distant, and there discharge their cargoes, which are transferred to St. Petersburg in lighters; in like manner they receive their cargoes from the capital; this, of course, is attended with great delay and considerable expense. Moreover, during the prevalence of strong westerly winds, the waters of the Gulf of Finland are heaped up at the upper end, and those of the Neva are driven back, so that it frequently happens that a large portion of the city is inundated; and in November, in the year 1827, a terrible example of this occurred. In many parts of the city the waters rose more than fourteen feet, many thousand persons were drowned, and a vast amount of valuable property was destroyed. These inundations might be avoided, and the port improved to a considerable extent, although it would necessarily require a very great expenditure. Still the object to be gained is of such importance that every reasonable means should be adopted to effect it, and compared with the enormous sums which have been expended in establishing this capital, the cost of improving the port would appear trifling.

Cronstadt is, properly speaking, the port of St. Petersburg. Here all vessels, whether of war or merchandise, must stop; and the southern side of the island, where there is the deepest water, from 24 to 27 feet, has been chosen as the site for the naval arsenal, as well as the port for merchant vessels, where docks had been made when I was there by enclosing a portion of the water space from the gulf; the two basins or harbours were close together, separated only by a partition wall. The accommodation for the mercantile vessels, although not small, nevertheless was in a rude state, devoid of the usual mechanical appliances which we have for many years been so accustomed to in England.

The naval arsenal, which was made in the time of Peter the Great, and was considered perfect at the time it was made, consists of a long canal leading from the outer to a small circular basin. Connected with this there were four dry docks for the line-of-battle ships of that period. From this the circular basin on the east side was connected with two other dry docks; and around these canals, basin and docks, there were several storehouses and magazines; but upon the whole they were badly arranged.

I may here as well mention that my brother and myself afterwards, at the request of the Emperor, designed a complete naval establishment for this place, utilizing as much as we could of the old construction, and this design, I believe, was to some extent adopted.

We afterwards built four iron steamboats, with their engines, for the Caspian Sea, which were the first ever afloat there. These vessels were built in England, then taken to pieces, and sent with the requisite number of workmen to Odessa. Thence by land they were transported to the Caspian, where they were again put together, with their engines, and answered their purpose well. We afterwards made the iron gates for the docks of Sebastopol, a pair of which were subsequently brought to England and France as war trophies. We also constructed several vessels of war, worked by the screw, for the Baltic and Black Seas; amongst others a yacht for the Emperor, to review his fleets in the Gulf of Finland, as well as for pleasure excursions. This was a small vessel, about 260 tons, with a pair of oscillating engines of the nominal power of 120 horses, although capable of working up to three times that power, and making fully 14 knots an hour. She was fitted up plainly but very neatly. From circumstances over which we had no control, the completion was prolonged to a later period of the year than we anticipated; and it was not before the middle of October, 1850, that we were ready to leave England, when my brother and his son George determined to go with her and deliver her in person. She was well insured, and was navigated by an English captain—who, I observed at the time, was not a very sharp fellow—and an English crew. As she was a small vessel she had to take a considerable quantity of coals on deck, which brought her down beyond her usual line of floatation. I went with her as far as Gravesend, and saw them fairly on their voyage, but before she reached the Baltic she encountered a severe storm, when she behaved admirably. At Copenhagen she took in more coals, and started again, and in the Baltic encountered another severe storm, which she got through equally as well as before. The weather then became fine, and they thought that all their troubles were over. The last storm had driven her considerably out of her course, which the captain had not taken a correct account of; and one fine starlight night, about ten o’clock, they were steaming away with a smooth sea, at the rate of about 10 to 12 knots an hour, when the engineer, putting his head out of the engine-house to enjoy the fine evening, suddenly called out, “I think I see land,” and went at once to the captain. The captain said, “It is impossible. We cannot be nearer land than 30 or 40 miles.” The captain and the Russian officer and my brother were at the time in the cabin taking their grog comfortably before going to bed. But he quickly went upon deck and soon discovered his error, and ordered the vessel to be put about; but before this could be done she struck upon a rock, and in spite of all their endeavours she could not be got off. The Russian officer declined taking any of the responsibility, saying it lay with the captain, and he would have nothing to do with it. At daylight they found themselves hard and fast upon the Island of Dago. My brother, finding that nothing could be done to get the vessel off, resolved with his son to make his way at once to St. Petersburg, and report the loss of the vessel. As the winter had begun, the journey was attended with considerable difficulty. However, they reached St. Petersburg, and had an audience of the Emperor Nicholas, who, when he heard the story, laughed heartily, and said, “Now, if this had occurred under the command of Russian officers and sailors, what would the English have said? why, that no wonder an accident had occurred, when the vessel was confided to those stupid fellows, the Russians. Now, you see, it has happened with the English; and they, with all their pretended knowledge, don’t know the Baltic yet, and are more stupid than the Russians.” Again he laughed heartily, and said, “I am delighted to find that my sailors are, after all, as clever as the English, and under the circumstances I am not sorry that the yacht is lost. It will teach the English in future not to be so proud of their knowledge, and to give the Russians credit for knowing the Baltic as well as they do.”