John Smeaton

John Smeaton (June 8, 1724 – October 28, 1792) was a civil engineer

• 1724 He was born in Austhorpe, Leeds, the eldest child of William Smeaton (1684–1749), attorney, and his wife, Mary, née Stones, (d. 1759).

• After studying at Leeds Grammar School, he joined his father's law firm, but then left to become a mathematical instrument maker (working with Henry Hindley), developing, among other instruments, a pyrometer to study material expansion and a whirling speculum or horizontal top (a maritime navigation aid).

• 1725 He married Ann Jenkinson (1725–1784) of York on 7 June 1756 at St George's, Hanover Square, London. Two daughters, Ann (b. 1759) and Mary (b. 1761), survived into adulthood.

• 1753 He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1753

• In 1759 he won the Copley Medal for his research into the mechanics of waterwheels and windmills. His paper addressed the relationship between pressure and velocity for objects moving in air, and his concepts were subsequently developed to devise the 'Smeaton Co-efficient'.

• However, over the period 1759-1782, he performed a series of further experiments and measurements on waterwheels that led him to support and champion the vis viva theory of German Gottfried Leibniz, an early formulation of conservation of energy. This led him into conflict with members of the academic establishment who rejected Leibniz's theory, believing it inconsistent with Sir Isaac Newton's conservation of momentum. The debate was sadly marred by unfortunate nationalistic sentiments on the establishment's part.

• Recommended by the Royal Society, Smeaton designed the third Eddystone Lighthouse (1755-59). He pioneered the use of 'hydraulic lime' (a form of mortar which will set under water) and developed a technique involving dovetailed blocks of granite in the building of the lighthouse. His lighthouse remained in use until 1877 when - with the rock underlying the structure's foundations beginning to erode - it was dismantled and partially rebuilt at Plymouth Hoe. He is important in the history of the development of cement, because he identified the compositional requirements needed to obtain "hydraulicity" in lime; work which led ultimately to the invention of Portland cement.

• Deciding that he wanted to focus on the lucrative field of civil engineering, he commenced an extensive series of commissions, including:
  • Calder and Hebble Navigation (1758-70)
  • Coldstream Bridge over the River Tweed (1762-67)
  • Improvements to the River Lee Navigation (1765-70)
  • Perth bridge over the River Tay (1766-71)
  • Ripon Canal (1766-1773)
  • Newark Viaduct over the River Trent in Nottinghamshire (1768-70)
  • Forth and Clyde Canal from Grangemouth to Glasgow (1768-77)
  • Banff harbour (1770-75)
  • Aberdeen bridge (1775-80)
  • Peterhead harbour (1775)
  • Harbour works at Ramsgate (retention basin 1776-83; jetty 1788-1792)
  • Hexham bridge (1777-90)
  • Birmingham and Fazeley Canal (1782-89)
  • St Austell's Charlestown harbour in Cornwall (1792)

• 1782 Because of his expertise in engineering, Smeaton was called to testify in a court for a case related to the silting-up of the harbour at Wells-next-the-Sea in Norfolk in 1782. He is considered to be the first expert witness to appear in an English court.

• 1761 Employing his skills as a mechanical engineer, he devised a water engine for the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew in 1761 and a watermill at Alston, Cumbria in 1767 (he is credited by some for inventing the cast iron axle shaft for waterwheels).

• In 1782 he built the Chimney Mill at Spital Tongues in Newcastle upon Tyne, the first 5-sailed smock mill in Britain. He also improved Thomas Newcomen's atmospheric steam engine, erecting one at Chasewater Mine in Cornwall in 1775.

• Smeaton's next major work, however, ended in disaster. Hexham Bridge had been destroyed by a flood of the River Tyne in 1771. After investigating the gravel river bed Smeaton selected what he judged to be a better site and designed a noble nine-arch structure, work on which started in 1777. By 1779 they were finished and the piers surrounded by sheet piling with massive rubble masonry mounds as a protection against scour, but despite all their care six of the eight piers were undermined by a violent flood in March 1782, two years after completion of the bridge

• Highly regarded by other engineers, he contributed to the Lunar Society and founded the Society of Civil Engineers in 1771. He coined the term civil engineers to distinguish them from military engineers graduating from the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich. After his death, the Society was renamed the Smeatonian Society, and was a forerunner of the Institution of Civil Engineers, established in 1818.

• His pupils included canal engineer William Jessop and architect and engineer Benjamin Latrobe.

• 1792 While walking in the garden of his family home at Austhorpe, he suffered a stroke and died six weeks later on 28 October 1792 and was buried in the parish church at Whitkirk, West Yorkshire.

Sources of Information

• [1] Wikipedia
• [2] DNB