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 18th 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.
