JOHN SMEATON FRS (8 June 1724 – 28 October 1792)

JOHN SMEATON FRS (8 June 1724 – 28 October 1792) was an English Civil Engineer responsible for the design of bridges, canals, harbors and lighthouse. He was also a capable mechanical engineer and an eminent physicist. Smeaton was the first self-proclaimed civil engineer and is often regarded as the father of civil engineering. He pioneered the use of hydraulic lime in concert, using pebbles and powdered bricks as aggregate. Smeaton was associated with the Lunar Society. Smeaton was born in born in Authored, Leeds, England. After studying at Leeds Grammar School he joined his father's law firm but left to become a mathematical instrument maker (working with Henry Hindley), developing, among other instruments, a pyrometer to study material expansion. In 1750, his premises were in the Great turnstile in Holborn. He was selected a fellow of the Royal Society in 1753 and in 1759 won the Copley Medal for his research into the mechanics of waterwheels and windmills. His 1759 paper "An Experimental Enquiry Concerning the Natural Powers of Water and Wind to Turn Mills and Other Machines Depending on Circular Motion addressed the relationship between pressures and velocity for objects moving in air.  

History of civil engineer(chapter 2)

 

Civil engineering Profession

Engineering has been aspect of life since the beginnings of human engineering. The earliest practice of civil engineering may have commenced between 4000 and 2000 BC in ancient Egypt the Indus valley. Civilization and Mesopotamia (ancient Iraq) when human started to abandon a nomadic existence creating a need for the construction of shelter during this time transportation became increasingly important leading to the development of the wheel and sailing until modern times there was no clear distinction between civil engineering and architecture and the term engineer and architect were mainly geographical variations referring to the same occupation, and often used interchangeably. The Construction of pyramids in Egypt were some of the first instances of large structure constructions other ancient historic civil engineering construction including the Qanat water management system (the oldest is older than 3000 yard and longer than 71km) the Parthenon by iktinos in ancient Greece the apian way by roman engineers the great wall of china by general meng tien under order from chin emperor shih huang ti and the stupas constructed in ancient Srilanka like the jetavanaramaya and the extensive irrigation works in Anuradhapura. The roman developed civil structures throughout their empire, including especially aqueducts, insulae, harbors, bridges, dams and road. In the 18^th century, the term civil engineering was coined to incorporate all things civilian as opposed to military engineering in 1747 the first institution for the teaching of civil engineering, the Ecole Nationaldes ponts ET chausses was established in France and more examples follow in other European countries like Spain. The First self-proclaimed civil engineer was john Smeaton, who constructed the Eddy stone Lighthouse. In 1771 Smeaton and some his colleagues formed the smeatonian society of civil engineers, a group of leaders of the profession who met informally over dinner. Though there was evidence of some technical meetings it was more than a social society.

In 1818 the institution if civil engineers was founded in London and in 1820 the eminent engineer Thomas Telford became its First president. The Institution received a Royal charter in 1828 formally recognizing civil engineering as a profession. Its charter defined civil engineering as: the art of directing the great sources of power in nature for the use and convenience of man as the means of production and of traffic in states, both for external and internal trade, as applied in the construction of roads, bridges, aqueducts, canals, river navigation and docks for internal intercourse and exchange, and in the construction of ports, harbors, moles, breakwaters and lighthouse, and inn the art of navigation by artificial power for the purposes of commerce, and in the construction and application of machinery, and in the drainage of cities and towns.