John Smeaton, FRS PDF
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JOHN SMEATON, FRS John Smeaton, FRS (engraving by W. Holl, after the portrait by Mather Brown) JOHN SMEATON, FRS Edited by PROFESSOR A. W. SKEMPTON Department of Civil Engineering Imperial College of Science and Technology University of London Thomas Telford Limited London, 1981 Published by Thomas Telford Ltd, Telford House, PO Box 101, 26-34 Old Street, London EC1P 1JH ©A. W. Skempton, 1981 ISBN: 978-0-7277-0088-9 All rights, including translation reserved. Except for fair copying, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the Managing Editor, Publications Division, Thomas Telford Ltd, PO Box 101, 26-34 Old Street, London EC1P 1JH Photoset, printed and bound in Great Britain by REDWOOD BURN LIMITED Trowbridge, Wiltshire Acknowledgements Many people have given help on particular points and are acknowl- edged in the Notes and References. Thanks are due especially to Miss Joyce Brown for transcribing Smeaton's letters to Benjamin Wilson, Mr Robert Matkin for finding the report on Dysart harbour and pro- viding information as well as copies of some original documents on Ramsgate harbour, Mr William Bunting for clarifying several matters on Hatfield Chase and the River Don, Mrs A. W. Skempton for assistance in field and archive research on Potteric Carr and Adlingfleet Level, Mr Rodney Law for checking Chapter 8, and Mr A. P. Woolrich for providing new material on John Farey. Little progress could have been made without facilities freely granted to work in various record offices, archives and libraries. These too are mentioned in the appropriate places, but a special word of thanks is due to the library staff at the Royal Society and the Institu- tion of Civil Engineers. Miss Anne Lane made the tracings, Mrs Brigette Cahalane typed with exemplary patience the numerous revisions which appear to be inescapable in a work of this kind, and Miss June Troy prepared the index. Acknowledgement for permission to reproduce photographs is due to the Council of the Royal Society for twelve of Smeaton's draw- ings, to Mr Jonathan Gibson for Coldstream Bridge, to the Royal Scottish Museum for the model of the Eddystone masonry courses, and the Newcomen Society for the page from Smeaton's diary. Abbreviations Smeaton's drawings in the Royal Society collection are referenced throughout this book as Designs followed by the volume and folio numbers. His collected reports, published in 1812, are similarly referenced as Reports with the volume and page numbers. Machine Letters refer to the letters copied by Smeaton on Watt's copying machine and now in the Institution of Civil Engineers. All other abbreviations are explained at relevant places in the Notes and References. Contents Introduction Professor A. W. Skempton, DSc, FRS, FICE 1 I John Smeaton Trevor Turner, MSc, MIMechE and A. W. Skempton 7 II Scientific Work Norman Smith, PhD 35 III Mills and Millwork Denis Smith, PhD, MIMechE 59 IV The Eddystone Lighthouse Rowland]. Mainstone, DEng, FSA, MICE, FIStructE 83 V Rivers and Canals Charles Hadfield, CMG, MA 103 VI Fen Drainage A. W. Skempton 131 VII Bridges Ted Ruddock, BA, MSc, MICE 155 VIII Steam Engines J. S. Allen, FICE 179 IX Harbours A. W. Skempton 195 X Professional Practice Denis Smith 217 XI Papers, Reports and Drawings A. W. Skempton 229 Appendix I Smeaton's Library and Instruments 247 Appendix II Portraits of Smeaton 252 Appendix III List of Works 253 Notes and References 259 TnHev 281 Introduction John Smeaton was the earliest of the great British civil engineers and the first to achieve distinction as an engineering scientist. It is also to him, more than any other person, that credit is due for laying the foundations of the civil engineering profession in this country; foun- dations on which his successors, very notably Thomas Telford, built the superstructure. Smeaton started his career as a maker of scientific instruments, in London. He retained a keen interest in science throughout his life, but this ran parallel with an even stronger interest in engineering and by 1753 he had turned to engineering as the source of his livelihood. Gifted with exceptional intellectual and practical abilities and a remarkable capacity for study and application, he developed an exten- sive practice, unrivalled in the eighteenth century, as a consulting engineer. The Eddystone Lighthouse is of course his best-known work, and this noble structure has so captured the imagination of engineers and the public alike that most of Smeaton's other achievements are almost forgotten by comparison. His major works include the River Calder Navigation; three fine masonry bridges at Coldstream, Perth and Banff; the Forth & Clyde Canal (from Grangemouth to Glasgow); substantial improvements of the Lee and the Aire river navigations; harbours at St Ives, Eyemouth, Portpatrick and Cromarty, and the north pier at Aberdeen; a lighthouse on Spurn Head; fen drainage schemes at Potteric Carr, Adlingfleet Level and Hatfield Chase; and the sluicing basin and Advanced Pier of Ramsgate harbour. In addition to other, smaller civil engineering works, more than 50 watermills and several windmills were built to his plans. Indeed the design of watermills, for a wide variety of industrial purposes, was a subject to which he devoted much attention; they constituted the 1 INTRODUCTION main source of power in his day. He also made a close study of steam engines and at least a dozen were designed by him, including the most efficient (at Long Benton) and the most powerful (at Chacewater) of any before James Watt came on the scene. It is fortunate that practically all of Smeaton's drawings have sur- vived and are in the Royal Society library. This large collection, part of the national heritage of England, covers every aspect of his work. The quality of draughtsmanship is of a high order and reveals in par- ticular his mastery of engineering details. The overall scheme, whether for a harbour, bridge or watermill, is obviously of essential importance and has to be the main consideration, yet its success will depend on getting the details right. Some of these, and the methods of executing them, could be and were left to the craftsmen on site; but in many instances Smeaton provided detail drawings of the utmost clarity. As for Smeaton's personal involvement with site work, this varied greatly. He almost lived on the Eddystonejob; he visited the Calder as often as once a week during the working season; and to Ramsgate, after his appointment as engineer, he went about four times a year with extra visits when new or difficult operations were involved. At the other extreme he assigned the entire supervision of a job to another engineer, including preparation of working drawings, though the scheme was to be carried out according to his master plan. This is known to have been the case at Adlingfleet where his friend John Grundy took charge, on the River Lee with the experienced Thomas Yeoman as engineer, and on the River Aire where the works were executed under the direction of his former pupil and assistant William Jessop. A more typical arrangement was for Smeaton to produce a report and the necessary drawings, after examining the site, and then to leave construction in the hands of a resident engineer, millwright or engine erector, with one or two further site visits during progress of the work. On the bigger jobs, of course, such visits had to be made at fairly frequent intervals and additional reports and drawings would be required from time to time. The Forth & Clyde Canal is a good and rather well-documented example of this procedure. In all cases, except perhaps the most straightforward mill or small bridge, there is no doubt that he kept in touch with his site representative by corre- spondence. On Cromarty harbour, for instance—a job of only mid- dling size and difficulty—well over a dozen letters passed to and from Smeaton and the resident engineer John Gwyn, together with some
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