Gerald Victor Adendorff, electrical engineer, was a son of Frans Ludowicus ("Louis" or "Lodewick") Adendorff and his wife Anna Catherina Wilhelmina, born Langerman. He worked for the Victoria Falls Power Company, Johannesburg, in 1910, where he studied the induced effects of lightning on powerlines. His conclusions were published in a paper on "Atmospheric phenomena and their relation to the production of over voltages in overhead electric transmission lines" (Transactions of the South African Institute of Electrical Engineers, 1910). Later papers by him, published in the same journal, dealt with "Thunderstorms" (1914) and "Notes on the application of synchronous condensers to large power systems" (1919).
Adendorff was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1924 and was an associate of the (British) Institution of Electrical Engineers. He was a member of the South African Association for the Advancement of Science in 1911, but no longer in 1918.
During the nineteen-twenties and -thirties he was a consulting electrical and mechanical engineer with his headquarters in Cape Town. His work included the planning of a power station at Beaufort West (1924), water works and electric lighting at Upington (1926), electric lighting at Hermanus (1926), a proposed electricity supply scheme and water supply for the municipality of Aberdeen (1933), electricity extensions at Burghersdorp (1934-1938), and a proposed suction gas electric power station at Cape Town (not dated).
