John Smeaton was born in Austhorpe, which is now part of Leeds, on 8th June 1724 and had returned to his home city by the time of his death on 28th October 1792. By then he had come to be regarded as the founder of the civil engineering profession in the British Isles.


What did he do?

His civil engineering achievements include:

· Eddystone Lighthouse · Calder and Hebble Navigation
· Coldstream Bridge over the River Tweed
· Perth Bridge over the River Tay
· Ripon Canal
· Newark Viaduct over the River Trent
· Forth and Clyde Canal from Grangemouth to Glasgow
· Banff Harbour
· Aberdeen Bridge
· Peterhead Harbour
· Harbour works at Ramsgate
· Hexham Bridge
· Birmingham and Fazeley Canal
· St Austell's Charlestown Harbour in Cornwall

His mechanical engineering achievements include:

· Water engine for the Royal Gardens at Kew
· Watermill at Alston, Cumbria
· Credited by some as inventing the cast iron axle shaft for waterwheels
· Improvements to Thomas Newcome's atmospheric steam engine
· Erection of atmospheric steam engine at Chasewater Mine in Cornwall

He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1753. In 1759 he won the Copley Medal for research into the mechanics of waterwheels and windmills, this work leading to the development of the Smeaton Coefficient which is to do with the relationship between pressure and velocity for objects moving in air.

The Institute of Civil Engineers grew from the Smeatonian Society which he founded in 1750 and used John Smeaton's Eddystone Lighthouse as its badge.


The Eddystone Lighthouse

In 1756 John Smeaton was given charge of the project for the construction of a third Eddystone Lighthouse, the second having been washed away after only five years. This project was to take three years and lead to a whole new approach which became the standard for all future lighthouses, including any built today.

His design was based on the trunk of an oak tree which he had watched withstanding a furious storm. He developed the use of dovetailed blocks of stone for Eddystone, and also had to invent a "hydraulic cement" or pozzolanic mortar, calcinations of limestone which would harden even when immersed in water. This work of Smeaton's is also seen as the starting point of the modern engineering use of cements and concrete which still affect our building methods today.

His lighthouse stood for 127 years, compared to the 5 years and 4 years of the previous two lighthouses, and would have survived as long again if the rocks on which it was built had not cracked. His tower was then dismantled and re-erected on Plymouth Hoe where it still stands.

From 1860 to 1971 and decimalisation his lighthouse was the one which accompanied Britannia on the reverse of the penny coin.

As well as the Eddystone Lighthouse he designed bridges in, among other places, Aberdeen, Banff, Coldstream, Hexham and Perth. He was also responsible for the Forth-Clyde Canal, the Calder Navigation and eight miles of canal at Ripon, plus Ramsgate Harbour and the pumps at London Bridge. He also has a mathematical formula named after him called the Smeaton Coefficient which is to do with the relationship between pressure and velocity for objects moving in air.


Commemorations

John Smeaton died on 28th October 1792 after he suffered a stroke while walking in the gardens of his home at Austhorpe. He is commemorated in Westminster Abbey by a plaque erected in 1992.

There is also a memorial in Whitkirk, Leeds.

Click here to enlarge the memorial.