F. O. Oertel

[5][6] Oertel left Germany for India where he studied at the Thomason College of Civil Engineering (now Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee).

[9] On his way back to Europe he was nearly killed on 17 April 1887, when the P&O Tasmania (de) which he had boarded sailing from Bombay (today Mumbai) to Marseille, sunk on the south-western coast of Corsica.

On his return, he wrote a lengthy report illustrated with original photos which was published as Note on a Tour in Burma in March and April 1892.

[12] The photographs he took during this journey also were used to illustrate George W. Bird's book Wanderings in Burma, published a few years later, along with photos by Felice Beato.

[19] This firsthand experience helped him to formulate his opinion concerning the construction of the new capital at New Delhi, which he made public with a lecture delivered before the East India Association at Caxton Hall, Westminster, on 21 July 1913.

[21] Oertel was a member of various associations: the Institution of Civil Engineers (1889),[22] the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland (1900),[23] and the Deutsche Morgenländische Gesellschaft (1908).

[29] In 1909, he was still on furlough in Europe where he visited glass factories in England, Germany, and Austria, publishing a short monograph on the topic in 1915, where he advocated that this industry should be developed in India.

[citation needed] Oertel left Sarnath for Agra where another major task awaited him: the restoration of the Diwan-i-Amm and Jahangiri Mahal in the Agra Fort and the reconstruction of the four minarets of the south gateway of the Akbar tomb in Sikandra in 1905–1906 while also working on the compound of the Taj Mahal,[35] all work undertaken under the impetus of Lord Curzon as preparation to the visit of the Prince and Princess of Wales.

[43] In January 1933, he travelled to India where he spent three months with his daughter, showing her the country where he had lived; the journey concluded with a visit to his brother, Charles (Carl) Hermann Oertel, who was barrister-at-law in Lahore.

[47] Oertel went back to England when his son married in 1938, meeting his wife for the last time before going to Portugal, the West Indies and Kingston, Jamaica and New York, where he arrived in June 1940.