John Smeaton

3 Key excerpts on "John Smeaton"

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  Masonry Bridges, Viaducts and Aqueducts

  • Ted Ruddock(Author)
  • 2017(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  Of the group of men who formed the first professional association of civil engineers – the Society of Engineers, which began meeting in London in 1771 – only one, other than Mylne, could count bridge design and building as an important part of his practice. He was John Smeaton, who had been the favoured candidate for the Blackfriars Bridge commission for several years before Mylne’s sudden arrival on the scene in 1759. Smeaton is more recognisable as father of the bridge engineers of the succeeding century than Mylne, because he looked to the developing science of mechanics to inform his decisions about the form and economy of structures. Smeaton’s bridge-building is represented here in chapters 10 and 13 and also studied in books by Skempton (1981) and myself (1979). 31 By the end of the century the technical methods introduced by Labelye and Mylne at Westminster and Blackfriars Bridges had been further developed with better pumping and pile-driving, both already powered on some sites by steam-engines, and various uses were being made of iron bars both to reinforce traditional masonry and to accelerate its construction. 32 A bridge whose story is equally famous and which was not the work of either engineer or architect is the single arch at Pontypridd in south Wales, completed in 1756. Its history is given here by chapters 11 and 12, the first by Williams and dealing solely, but very valuably, with printed and manuscript writings, and the second containing my analysis of early extant drawings of the bridge. Together these testify to the importance, for historical accuracy, of detailed documentary research. Jean Manco’s chapter 14, on Pulteney Bridge, Bath, which was built between 1770 and 1774, provides similar detail of the story of a fairly late example of a bridge designed by a major architect, Robert Adam. It is a bridge as unique as Pontypridd but for different reasons, being built as a street over the river Avon and lined on both sides with retail shops

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  Science, technology and economic growth in the eighteenth century

  • A E Musson(Author)
  • 2014(Publication Date)
  • Taylor & Francis

    (Publisher)

  19

  Smeaton, so Smiles tells us, deliberately ‘limited his professional employment, that he might be enabled to devote a certain portion of his time to self-improvement and scientific investigation’; he was frequently engaged in study and experiment in the specially erected tower, combining workshop, study, and observatory, at his home at Austhorpe, near Leeds.20 He was also a member of the scientific coterie in Leeds, including Joseph Priestley and others.21 George Stephenson later referred to Smeaton as

  the greatest philosopher in our profession that this country has yet produced. He was indeed a great man, possessing a truly Baconian mind, for he was an incessant experimenter. The principles of mechanics were never so clearly exhibited as in his writings, more especially with respect to resistance, gravity, and the power of water and wind to turn mills. His mind was as clear as crystal, and his demonstrations will be found mathematically conclusive. To this day there are no writings so valuable as his in the highest walks of scientific engineering …22

  Telford, originally a stonemason, is often regarded, like Brindley before him, as a purely practical engineer, devoid of, and even hostile to, scientific theory.23 There is no doubt, as Sir Alexander Gibb has shown,24 that Telford emphasized above all the value of practical experience, but he was ‘no enemy to either mathematics or theory’. Indeed, he acquired a considerable fund of theoretical knowledge. His early letters reveal him reading very widely on architecture, mathematics, chemistry, mechanics, hydrostatics, etc., on which he made copious notes. Thus on 1 February 1796 he wrote to his friend, David Little:25

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  Ten Engineers Who Made Britain Great

  The Men Behind the Industrial Revolution

  • Anthony Burton(Author)
  • 2023(Publication Date)
  • The History Press

    (Publisher)

  3

  John Smeaton

  Image: John Smeaton. (Stephen C. Dickson)

  J ohn Smeaton had a very different background from the men we have looked at so far, as perhaps might seem obvious from the language he used in the letter to Brindley quoted on p. 51. His father, William Smeaton, was an attorney in Leeds, and the family had a rather grand home, Austhorpe Lodge, some 5 miles away. It was here that John was born in 1722 and where he was educated until the age of 10, when he went to Leeds Grammar School; he remained there until he was 16. It seems that from an early age he showed a great interest in anything mechanical, and after leaving school he had his own workshop. This might have been no more than a hobby had he not had the great good fortune to become friends with Henry Hindley of York in 1741. Hindley was then 40 years old and already established as one of the country’s leading manufacturers of clocks, watches and scientific instruments. He had several inventions to his credit, including a screw-cutting lathe, one of which Smeaton was able to install in his own private workshop.

  At this time, the parents were beginning to get seriously worried about their son’s future: Hindley may have been a brilliant technician and innovator, but he was in trade and William Smeaton was in a profession. So, at 19 young Smeaton was sent off to London to begin studying for the law. We have no means of knowing how much effort he put into mastering the legal profession, but clearly he had no love for the occupation. He did, however, make friends with another reluctant law student, Benjamin Wilson, whose great love was for studying science and had a particular interest in electricity. Wilson knew many of the leading scientists of the day, including members of the prestigious Royal Society, and introduced Smeaton to them. Soon after this both young men gave up law forever: Wilson to pursue his studies in electricity and also to become a very successful portrait painter; Smeaton to return to Yorkshire, where he began making scientific instruments to help Wilson with his work and for making experiments of his own. They shared a common interest in astronomy and soon Smeaton was adding lens grinding for telescopes to his range of skills.

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