A member of many institutions and the recipient of three honorary doctorates, Kennedy was also an avid mountaineer and a keen amateur photographer being one of the first to document the archaeological site of Petra in Jordan following the collapse of the Ottoman Empire.

He spent the next four years there working as a draughtsman and had a hand in the construction of the first ships with compound engines and twin screws.

He wrote a series of articles on several designs for the journal Engineering which were later reprinted in the official report on the exhibition made by the British Royal Commission.

[3] In 1874, aged only 27, he was appointed to the chair of Engineering at University College, London, a post he would hold for the next 15 years (succeeded by Thomas Hudson Beare).

[5] Whilst working at the UCL he translated Franz Reuleaux's Theoretische Kinematik (1875, Vieweg und Sohn) into English for the first time in 1876 (with title The Kinematics of Machinery).

[6] He also used the laboratory to carry out experiments to determine the strength and elasticity of various materials and was elected as a fellow of the Royal Society for this work in 1887.

During this period he was asked to investigate a remote oil concession in California which lay several days horse riding from the nearest road or railway.

[9] In 1889, Kennedy resigned his professorship and left the University turning to electrical engineering, which he had researched during his academic career.

Many towns first electric generating stations were built to his designs including those of Edinburgh, Glasgow, Manchester, Belfast, Croydon, Carlisle, Kirkcaldy, Weymouth, Hartlepool, York and Rotherham.

Kennedy was contracted to build two hydroelectric stations for the British Aluminium Company, their first at the Falls of Foyers in 1896 and a second at Kinlochleven in 1909.

[10] Kennedy also acted as a consultant to several railway companies in the London area, particularly in regard to electrification and tram systems.

He advised the London County Council with regard to their tram network and instigated their use of unusual underground conduits for their electricity supply.

[15][14] Kennedy married Elizabeth Verralls Smith on 8 September 1874, in Cromdale, Inverallan and Advie, Inverness, Scotland.

The younger son, John MacFarlane became a full partner of his father's firm, Kennedy & Jenkin, in 1908.

D. Van Nostrand, publisher, New York (1881)The Kinematics of Machinery; Outlines of a Theory of Machines by Franz Reuleaux, translated by Kennedy, Engineering, Vol.