Mechanical Engineering
George Rennie's genius was chiefly mechanical, and he superintended the manufacturing business of the firm in Holland Street, where a great variety of machinery was turned out, including the first biscuit-making machinery, corn and chocolate mills for Deptford victualling yard, and the machinery at the Royal William Victualling Yard, Plymouth. They also constructed some locomotives for the London and Croydon Railway. Many orders for foreign governments were executed, and the firm were employed by the Admiralty in making engines for the Royal Navy. He was much interested in the screw-propeller, and his firm built the engines for Archimedes, the world's first propeller-driven steamship. Subsequently, in 1840, the firm built for the Admiralty the Dwarf, the first vessel in the British navy propelled by a screw.
Roe (1916) discusses Rennie's contributions to the development of the planer.
In 1822 he was elected Fellow of the Royal Society, and contributed papers to the Transactions in 1829 on the friction of metals and other substances. He also presented papers to the British Association and to the Institution of Civil Engineers, of which body he was elected a member in 1841.
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