SMEATON (John)

, F. R. S. and a very cele- brated civil engineer, was born the 28th of May 1724, at Austhorpe, near Leeds, in a house built by his grandfather, where the family have resided ever since, and where our author died the 28th of October 1792, in the 68th year of his age.

Mr. Smeaton seems to have been born an engineer. The originality of his genius and the strength of his understanding appeared at a very early age. His playthings were not those of children, but the tools men work with; and he had always more amusement in observing artificers work, and asking them questions, than in any thing else. Having watched some mill-wrights at work, he was one day, soon after, seen (to the distress of his family) on the top of his father's barn, fixing up something like a windmill. Another time, attending some men who were fixing a pump at a neighbouring village, and observing them cut off a piece of bored pipe, he contrived to procure it, of which he made a working pump that actually raised water. These anecdotes refer to circumstances that happened when he was hardly out of petticòats, and probably before he had reached the 6th year of his age. About his 14th or 15th year, he had made for himself an engine to turn rose-work; and he made several presents to his friends of boxes in ivory and wood, turned by him in that way.

His friend and partner in the Deptford Waterworks, Mr. John Holmes, an eminent clock and watch maker in the Strand, says, he visited Mr. Smeaton and spent a month with him at his father's house, in the year 1742, when consequently our author was about 18 years of age. Mr. Holmes could not but view young Smeaton's works with astonishment: he forged his own iron and steel, and melted his own metals; he had tools of every sort, for working in wood, ivory, and metals: he had made a lathe, by which he had cut a perpetual screw in brass, a thing very little known at that day.

Thus had Mr. Smeaton, by the strength of his genius, and indefatigable industry, acquired, at 18 years of age, an extensive set of tools, and the art of working in most of the mechanical trades, without the assistance of any master, and which he continued to do a part of every day when at the place where his tools were: and few men could work better.

Mr. Smeaton's father was an attorney, and was desirous of bringing him up to the same profession. He therefore came up to London in 1742, and for some time attended the courts in Westminster Hall. But finding that the profession of the law did not suit the bent of his genius, as his usual expression was, he wrote a strong memorial to his father on the subject, whose good sense from that moment left Mr. Smeaton to pursue the bent of his genius in his own way.

Mr. Smeaton after this continued to reside in London, and about 1750 he commenced philosophical instrument maker, which he continued for some time, and became acquainted with most of the ingenious men of that time; and this same year he made his first communication to the Royal Society, being an account of Dr. Knight's improvements of the mariner's compass. Continuing his very useful labours, and making experiments, he communicated to that learned body, the two following years, a number of other ingenious improve- | ments, as will be enumerated in the list of his writings, at the end of this account of him.

In 1751 he began a course of experiments, to try a machine of his invention, for measuring a ship's way at fea; and also made two voyages in company with Dr. Knight to try it, as well as a compass of his own invention.

In 1753 he was elected a member of the Royal Society; and in 1759 he was honoured with their gold medal, for his paper concerning the natural powers of water and wind to turn mills, and other machines depending on a circular motion. This paper, he says, was the result of experiments made on working models in the years 1752 and 1753, but not communicated to the Society till 1759, having in the interval found opportunities of putting the result of these experiments into real practice, in a variety of cases, and for various purposes, so as to assure the Society he had found them to answer.

In 1754 his great thirst after experimental knowledge led him to undertake a voyage to Holland and the Low Countries, where he made himself acquainted with most of the curious works of art so frequent in those places.

In December 1755, the Edystone lighthouse was burnt down, and the proprietors, being desirous of rebuilding it in the most substantial manner, enquired of the earl of Macclesfield, then president of the Royal Society, who he thought might be the fittest person to rebuild it, when he immediately recommended our author. Mr. Smeaton accordingly undertook the work, which he completed with stone in the summer of 1759. Of this work he gives an ample description in a folio volume, with plates, published in 1791. A work which contains, in a great measure, the history of four years of his life, in which the originality of his genius is fully displayed, as well as his activity, industry, and perseverance.

Though Mr. Smeaton completed the building of the Edystone lighthouse in 1759, yet it seems he did not soon get into full business as a civil engineer; for in 1764, while in Yorkshire, he offered himself a candidate for one of the receivers of the Derwentwater estate; in which he succeeded, though two other persons, strongly recommended and powerfully supported, were candidates for the employment. In this appointment he was very happy, by the assistance and abilities of his partner Mr. Walton the younger, of Farnacres near Newcastle, one of the present receivers, who, taking upon himself the management and the accounts, left Mr. Smeaton leisure and opportunity to exert his abilities on public works, as well as to make many improvements in the mills, and in the estates of Greenwich hospital.

By the year 1775, he had so much business, as a civil engineer, that he was desirous of resigning the appointment for that hospital, and would have done it then, had not his friends prevailed upon him to continue in the office about two years longer.

Mr. Smeaton having thus got into full business as a civil engineer, it would be an endless task to enumerate all the variety of concerns he was engaged in. A very few of them however may be just mentioned in this place. —He made the river Calder navigable: a work that required great skill and judgment; owing to the very impetuous floods in that river—He planned and attended the execution of the great canal in Scotland, for conveying the trade of the country, either to the Atlantic or German ocean; and having brought it to a conclusion, he declined a handsome yearly salary, that he might not be prevented from attending to the multiplicity of his other business.

On opening the great arch at London bridge, the excavation around and under the sterlings was so considerable, that it was thought the bridge was in greatdanger of falling; the apprehensions of the people on this head being so great, that few would pass over or under it. He was then in Yorkshire, where he was sent for by express, and he arrived in town with the greatest expedition. He applied himself immediately to examine it, and to sound about the sterlings as minutely as he could. The committee being called together, adopted his advice, which was, to repurchase the stones that had been taken from the middle pier, then lying in Moorfields, and to throw them into the river to guard the sterlings, a practice he had before adopted on other occasions. Nothing shews the apprehensions of the bridge falling, more than the alacrity with which his advice was pursued: the stones were repurchased that day; horses, carts, and barges were got ready, and the work instantly begun though it was Sunday morning. Thus Mr. Smeaton, in all human probability, saved London bridge from falling, and secured it till more effectual methods could be taken.

In 1771, he became, jointly with his friend Mr. Holmes above mentioned, proprietor of the works for supplying Deptford and Greenwich with water; which by their united endeavours they brought to be of general use to those they were made for, and moderately beneficial to themselves.

About the year 1785, Mr. Smeaton's health began to decline; in consequence he then took the resolution to endeavour to avoid any new undertakings in business as much as he could, that he might thereby also have the more leisure to publish some account of his inventions and works. Of this plan however he got no more executed than the account of the Edystone lighthouse, and some preparations for his intended treatise on mills; for he could not resist the solicitations of his friends in various works; and Mr. Aubert, whom he greatly loved and respected, being chosen chairman of Ramsgate harbour, prevailed upon him to accept the office of engineer to that harbour; and to their joint efforts the public are chiefly indebted for the improvements that have been made there within these few years; which fully appears in a report that Mr. Smeaton gave in to the board of trustees in 1791, which they immediately published.

It had for many years been the practice of Mr. Smeaton to spend part of the year in town, and the remainder in the country, at his house at Austhorpe; on one of these excursions in the country, while walking in his garden, on the 16th of September 1792, he was struck with the palsy, which put an end to his useful life the 28th of October following, to the great regret of a numerous set of friends and acquaintances.

The great variety of mills constructed by Mr. Smeaton, so much to the satisfaction and advantage of the owners, will shew the great use he made of his experi- | ments in 1752 and 1753. Indeed he scarcely trusted to theory in any case where he could have an opportunity to investigate it by experiment; and for this purpose he built a steam-engine at Austhorpe, that he might make experiments expressly to ascertain the power of Newcomen's steam-engine, which he improved and brought to a much greater degree of certainty, both in its construction and powers, than it was before.

During many years of his life, Mr Smeaton was a constant attendant on parliament, his opinion being continually called for. And here his natural strength of judgment and perspicuity of expression had their full display. It was his constant practice, when applied to, to plan or support any measure, to make himself fully acquainted with it, and be convinced of its merits, before he would be concerned in it. By this caution, joined to the clearness of his description, and the integrity of his heart, he seldom failed having the bill he supported carried into an act of parliament. No person was heard with more attention, nor had any one ever more confidence placed in his testimony. In the courts of law he had several compliments paid to him from the bench, by the late lord Mansfield and others, on account of the new light he threw upon difficult subjects.

As a civil engineer, he was perhaps unrivalled, certainly not excelled by any one, either of the present or former times. His building the Edystone lighthouse, were there no other monument of his fame, would establish his character. The Edystone rocks have obtained their name from the great variety of contrary sets of the tide or current in their vicinity. They are situated nearly S. S. W. from the middle of Plymouth Sound. Their distance from the port of Plymouth is about 14 miles. They are almost in the line which joins the Start and the Lizard points; and as they lie nearly in the direction of vessels coasting up and down the channel, they were unavoidably, before the establishment of a light-house there, very dangerous, and often fatal to ships. Their situation with regard to the Bay of Biscay and the Atlantic is such, that they lie open to the swells of the bay and ocean, from all the south-western points of the compass; so that all the heavy seas from the south-west quarter come uncontroled upon the Edystone rocks, and break upon them with the utmost fury. Sometimes, when the sea is to all appearance smooth and even, and its surface unruffled by the slightest breeze, the ground swell meeting the slope of the rocks, the sea beats upon them in a frightful manner, so as not only to obstruct any work being done on the rock, or even landing upon it, when, figuratively speaking, you might go to sea in a walnut-shell. That circumstances fraught with danger surrounding it should lead mariners to wish for a light-house, is not wonderful; but the danger attending the erection leads us to wonder that any one could be found hardy enough to undertake it. Such a man was first found in the person of Mr. H. Winstanley, who, in the year 1696, was furnished by the Trinity-house with the necessary powers. In 1700 it was finished; but in the great storm of November 1703, it was destroyed, and the projector perished in the ruins. In 1709 another, upon a different construction, was erected by a Mr. Rudyerd, which, in 1755, was unfortunately consumed by sire. The next building was under the direction of Mr. Smeaton, who, having considered the errors of the former constructions, has judiciously guarded against them, and erected a building, the demolition of which seems little to be dreaded, unless the rock on which it is erected should perish with it.—Of his works, in constructing bridges, harbours, mills, engines, &c, &c, it were endless to speak. Of his inventions and improvements of philosophical instruments, as of the air-pump, the pyrometer, hygrometer, &c, &c, some idea may be formed from the list of his writings inserted below.

In his person, Mr. Smeaton was of a middle stature, but broad and strong made, and possessed of an excellent constitution. He had a great simplicity and plainness in his manners: he had a warmth of expression that might appear, to those who did not know him well, to border on harshness; but such as were more closely acquainted with him, knew it arose from the intense application of his mind, which was always in the pursuit of truth, or engaged in the investigation of difficult subjects. He would sometimes break out hastily, when any thing was said that was contrary to his ideas of the subject; and he would not give up any thing he argued for, till his mind was convinced by sound reasoning.

In all the social duties of life, Mr. Smeaton was exemplary; he was a most affectionate husband, a good father, a warm, zealous and sincere friend, always ready to assist those he respected, and often before it was pointed out to him in what way he could serve them. He was a lover and an encourager of merit wherever he found it; and many persons now living are in a great measure indebted for their present situation to his assistance and advice. As a companion, he was always entertaining and instructive, and none could spend their time in his company without improvement.

As to the list of his writings; beside the large work abovementioned, being the History of Edystone Lighthouse, and numbers of reports and memorials, many of which were printed, his communications to the Royal Society, and inserted in their Transactions, are as follow:

1. An Account of Dr. Knight's Improvements of the Mariner's Compass; an. 1750, pa. 513.

2. Some improvements in the Air-pump; an. 1752, pa. 413.

3. An Engine for raising Water by Fire; being an improvement on Savary's construction, to render it capable of working itself: invented by M. de Moura, of Portugal. Ib. pa. 436.

4. Description of a new Tackle, or Combination of Pulleys. Ib. 494.

5. Experiments upon a machine for measuring the Way of a Ship at Sea. An. 1754, pa. 532.

6. Description of a new Pyrometer. Ib. pa. 598.

7. Effects of Lightning on the Steeple and Church of Lestwithial in Cornwall. An. 1757, pa. 198.

8. Remarks on the different Temperature of the Air at Edystone Light-house, and at Plymouth. An. 1758, pa. 488.

9. Experimental enquiry concerning the natural powers of Water and Wind to turn mills and other machines depending on a circular motion. An. 1759, pa. 100. |

10. On the Menstrual Parallax arising from the mutual gravitation of the earth and moon, its influence on the observation of the sun and planets, with a method of observing it. An. 1768, pa. 156.

11. Description of a new method of Observing the heavenly bodies out of the meridian. An. 1768, pa. 170.

12. Observations on a Solar Eclipse. An. 1769, pa. 286.

13. Description of a new Hygrometer. An. 1771, pa. 198.

14. An Experimental Examination of the quantity and proportion of Mechanical Power, necessary to be employed in giving different degrees of velocity to heavy bodies from a state of rest. An. 1776, pa. 450.