John Smeaton Research Articles

English engineer John Smeaton's experimental method(s): Optimisation, hypothesis testing and exploratory experimentation

In this paper I provide a detailed account of eighteenth-century engineer John Smeaton's experimental methods, with the aim of bringing our understanding of his work into line with recent research in the history and philosophy of science. Starting from his use of the technique of parameter variation, I identify three distinct methodological aims in the research he carried out on waterwheels, windmills and hydraulic mortars. These aims are: optimisation, hypothesis testing and maxim generation. The main claim of this paper is that Smeaton did more than merely improve engineering methods by systematising earlier artisanal approaches, which is the classic view of Smeaton's method developed by historians of technology in the 1990s. I argue instead that his approach bridged the divide between science and technology, by integrating both hypothesis testing and exploratory experimentation. This is borne out, in particular, by the way that Smeaton emphasised the exploratory side of the work he published in the Philosophical Transactions, in contrast to his account of the construction of the Eddystone lighthouse, which was aimed at a broader, non-specialist public. I contribute to recent research on exploratory experimentation by showing – in line with other work on this topic – that exploratory experimentation is not incompatible with hypothesis testing. This new perspective on Smeaton's method will hopefully lead to further research and new insights into the relation between science and technology at the start of the Industrial Revolution.

“The joint labours of ingenious men”:JohnSmeaton'sRoyalSociety network and theEddystoneLighthouse

The Industrial Enlightenment is widely thought to have been a period when “science” and “technology” became intimately intertwined. In his 1791 book on the building of the Eddystone lighthouse (completed in 1759), the English engineer John Smeaton praised the Royal Society for being more than a group of abstract theoreticians. This article looks at the fellows of Smeaton's Royal Society network who contributed knowledge, reports, specimens, and inventions solicited by Smeaton when he was working on this lighthouse project. I show, in line with other recent research on this topic, that the “artisans” of the 18th century did not confine themselves to practical know-how, and that “scholars” were not merely interested in abstract philosophising; instead, the figures I look at in this paper were hybrid knowers who possessed useful knowledge and book learning. I argue that the advice solicited by Smeaton during the building of the lighthouse was characterised not by exchanges between theory and practice, but by a combining of different types of knowledge from separate fields. A second feature of this intellectual co-operation is that it was not centred on a group of practical industrialists or engineers, but rather it was the Royal Society that served as the common denominator, bringing all of the characters in our story into contact with each other. This is reflected in the subject matter involved, which was characteristic of the research focus of the virtuoso tradition in the 18th-century Royal Society. Smeaton's contact with this tradition was influenced by his friendships, his social activities, and, indirectly, by the way that the dissensions that occupied the Royal Society during the early 1780s impacted his retrospective account of the project.

John Smeaton and the vis viva controversy: Measuring waterwheel efficiency and the influence of industry on practical mechanics in Britain 1759-1808.

In this paper, I will examine John Smeaton's contribution to the vis viva controversy in Britain, focusing on how the hybridization of science, technology, and industry helped to establish vis viva, or mechanic power, as a measure of motive force. Smeaton, embodying the 'hybrid expert' who combined theoretical knowledge and practical knowhow, demonstrated that the notion of vis viva possessed a greater explanatory power than momentum, because it could be used to explain the difference in efficiency between overshot and undershot waterwheels. Smeaton's conclusions were correct since waterwheel efficiency was already measured in terms that were proportional to vis viva, not momentum, as a result of the industrial applications of waterwheel technology, which favored measuring efficiency by the product of mass and vertical displacement. Toward the end of the eighteenth century, the loss of motive force in the inelastic collision driving the undershot wheel began to be seen as equivalent to the expenditure of labor in the manufacture of commodities, further underlining how strictly scientific conclusions about motive force could have their origin in industrial practices.

John Smeaton and the Fire Engine: 1765–1785

This paper examines John Smeatons’s contribution to the development of the atmospheric type engine during the period 1765 to 1785. Smeaton was predominantly involved in the design of pumping, and returning engines. His engine work resulted in some of the finest engines of their type which pushed the technology of the atmospheric engine to, and sometimes beyond, its limits.

Engineering and technology of industrial water power at Castleford Mills from the seventeenth century to the twentieth century.

This article tells the story of engineering and technology at Castleford Water Mills from the seventeenth century to the twentieth century through the presentation of recently discovered design plans and deeds, supplemented by other historical research. One of Castleford's mills was operated by Dr Thomas Allinson's Natural Food Company and therefore retained stoneground milling when fashions for white flour prompted other mills to switch to roller systems. The millstones were powered by a high-efficiency breastshot wheel, believed to be the last of its type taken out of industrial service in Britain. Many of its features, and its subsequent longevity, can be attributed to the influential works of William Fairbairn and John Smeaton. Detailed colour designs show the construction specifications of this water-wheel and its civil housing, along with other engineering plans such as a previously unrecorded Henry Simon horizontal turbine. Links with John Smeaton and the entry in his catalogue of designs for Castleford Oil Mill are also explored, and a former flood mill is identified at the site.

Thomas Newcomen (1664–1729) and the first recorded steam engine

Some 300 years ago in the UK there was a growing need for mine pumping beyond the power available from wind, water and animals. Steady development in the scientific study of such things as steam showed the way ahead and, sometime after 1700, Thomas Newcomen made the breakthrough in developing a viable steam engine. Through the Baptist network, Newcomen, who was a Dartmouth businessman, installed an engine to drain a mine in Dudley in the West Midlands and this was widely reported. Over the next 20 years, a further 100 engines were built, including 11 on the continent. Despite being extremely inefficient, the engine prospered where steam pumping of water was vital to industrial development, before John Smeaton and James Watt turned their scientific minds to improving the efficiency, initially doubling and trebling the earlier performance. While these engineers had a truly wonderful intuitive understanding of steam and vacuum, it was many years before thermodynamics evolved to explain the reasons for their success. This paper traces the development of steam engines from 1712 towards 1800 and allows a better appreciation of the achievements of engineers in that period and how they laid the foundations for steam engines to power the Industrial Revolution.

John Mudge

John Mudge

Saynes Mill: excavation of a tide mill on the River Lea, London

Excavations at 150 Stratford High Street, London E15, found evidence for Saynes Mill, a tide powered grain mill of medieval origin, converted in 1745–62 into a pumping station for the West Ham Water Company with an engine installed by John Smeaton. The large-scale reconstruction meant that there was limited survival of earlier buildings, but many later structures survived almost intact and stretches of the quays that flanked the Waterworks River were also recorded. The excavated remains of both the buildings and revetments spanned the period from the late 15th to the late 19th centuries.

Over and Undershot Waterwheels in the 18th Century. Science-Technology Controversy

The present paper concerns the development of theory and experiments on water wheels in the 18th cen- tury. At that time, as a result of a growing demand for energy, a better understanding of the functioning of watermills, even at the theoretical level, was required in order to improve their efficiency. A hint about the evolution of the theory of wheels in the 19th century is reported also. We have tried to clarify the role played by some protagonists as Antoine Parent, Jean-Charles de Borda and John Smeaton. Their role has not been fully recognised even in contemporary studies. Then some considerations are developed on the relationships between science and technology on this particular subject, concluding that it was a happy and well-balanced marriage.

John Smeaton's Snuff Mill at Chimney Mills, Newcastle upon Tyne: Building Recording and Excavations on the Site of the Former Leazes Brewery

This article analyses the results of a programme of archaeological building recording and evaluation on the site of the Leazes Brewery, established in 1837 using premises built c. 1782 as a water-powered snuff mill to a design by John Smeaton (1724–1792), possibly his only mill designed for this use. Smeaton is of national significance as a designer of wind- and water-powered industrial machinery and buildings, and he was among the first to describe himself as a 'civil engineer' and as a 'professional'.The only part of the snuff mill still surviving above ground is the Grade II listed Leazes, or Transport, House. Two unlisted parallel brick-built ranges to the north-west of Leazes House, built after c. 1782 but before 1831 and forming part of the later use of the snuff manufactory, had been incorporated into the Leazes Brewery and latterly Newcastle University's Jones Marine Engineering Laboratories. These ranges were demolished after recording in March 2008.

Practical Matter: Newton's Science in the Service of Industry and Empire, 1687-1851 (review)

Reviewed by: Practical Matter: Newton's Science in the Service of Industry and Empire 1687-1851 Anita Guerrini (bio) Margaret C. Jacob and Larry Stewart . Practical Matter: Newton's Science in the Service of Industry and Empire, 1687-1851Harvard University Press. x, 202. US $35.00 This short volume is part of a new series from Harvard University Press entitled 'New Histories of Science, Technology, and Medicine' which are intended for popular audiences. Margaret C. Jacob and Larry Stewart are both well-known historians of eighteenth-century science and society. Their book examines how Newtonian science became the paradigm in Western thought and how, in particular, it contributed to that series of events known as the Industrial Revolution. Readers acquainted with [End Page 263] Jacob's work will find much familiar material here, including an emphasis on sociability and freemasonry, and the argument that Newtonian science, as transmitted by popular, non-university lecturers, played a critical role in the Industrial Revolution. Stewart's work on popular lecturers and experimental demonstration complements and extends this argument. Although there is some mention of continental European developments, particularly in France and the Netherlands, the main emphasis of the book is on Britain. Its end point of 1851 marks the apogee of British industrial dominance, but British science had begun its decline in relation to the Continent several decades earlier. In their opening chapters Jacob and Stewart offer an overview of Newtonianism and Western science that highlights the experimental and mechanical side of Newton and of seventeenth-century science generally. The authors know perfectly well that Newton was not a straightforward mechanist: immaterial forces were at the centre of his system, and experiments took second place to mathematical demonstration. But they are correct in asserting that Newtonians - whom they define very loosely - were more mechanical and experimental than was Newton himself. However, as the example of Descartes shows, the mechanical philosophy did not imply experimental proof. Jacob and Stewart are at their best in their lively account of the social and political networks of eighteenth-century science. Alongside the more formal academies such as the Royal Society and the Paris Académie des sciences were criss-crossing informal networks of writers, lecturers, and interested amateurs who congregated in coffee-houses and taverns across Europe. Public lectures fuelled popular interest in science of all kinds. Jacob and Stewart emphasize the practical, mechanical (in the modern sense) subject matter of these lectures, but in fact lecturers flourished in many different areas, some of them quite esoteric, including human and animal anatomy. However, all lecturers engaged their audiences in similar ways, with dramatic experiments and, increasingly, with the use of various instruments. Emblematic of the popular lecturer was the Huguenot Jean Théophile Desaguliers (who unaccountably becomes John halfway through the book), who lectured successfully while also managing engineering projects on the estate of the Duke of Chandos. Not surprisingly, Desaguliers - like many men of science, an Anglican clergyman - neglected his parish, but the patronage of Chandos and others more than made up for that. Public lecturing, which had spread from London to the provinces, the colonies, and the Continent by the mid-eighteenth century, attracted growing audiences, particularly of artisans and craftsmen. 'Philosopher-engineers' such as John Smeaton paved the way for Matthew Boulton and James Watt. Dissemination of scientific ideas took place in popular [End Page 264] magazines as well as in the Royal Society's Philosophical Transactions and in a variety of local societies. The authors conclude with a case study of Manchester in the early nineteenth century and the intellectual and scientific interests of two cotton manufacturers. In Napoleonic France, in contrast, scientific education became a matter of national policy, which, in the long term, proved superior to that of Britain. But the 1851 Crystal Palace exhibition displayed a Britain at its industrial height. Briskly narrated and engagingly illustrated, Practical Matter is a readable addition to the debates on the origins of industrialization. [End Page 265] Anita Guerrini Anita Guerrini, Department of Environmental Studies, University of California, Santa Barbara Copyright © 2006 University of Toronto Press Incorporated

Jacob Leupold's analysis of the overshot water-wheel

Jacob Leupold flourished in Leipzig in the early eighteenth century. He is renowned for his Theatrum Machinarum, a ten-volume encyclopedia of technology, written to instil an understanding of basic mechanical principles in skilled artisans rather than the established cognoscenti of his day. Leupold's analysis of the overshot water-wheel is examined in the context of the earlier theoretical work of Antoine Parent and the subsequent experiments of John Smeaton. In spite of an egregious error in calculation, his simple mathematical model is basically sound and may be seen as an early example of the application of ‘technological science’ in the practice of engineering.

Jacob Leupold's analysis of the overshot water-wheel

Jacob Leupold flourished in Leipzig in the early eighteenth century. He is renowned for his Theatrum Machinarum, a ten-volume encyclopedia of technology, written to instil an understanding of basic mechanical principles in skilled artisans rather than the established cognoscenti of his day. Leupold's analysis of the overshot water-wheel is examined in the context of the earlier theoretical work of Antoine Parent and the subsequent experiments of John Smeaton. In spite of an egregious error in calculation, his simple mathematical model is basically sound and may be seen as an early example of the application of ‘technological science’ in the practice of engineering.

Jacob Leupold's analysis of the overshot water-wheel

Jacob Leupold flourished in Leipzig in the early eighteenth century. He is renowned for his Theatrum Machinarum, a ten-volume encyclopedia of technology, written to instil an understanding of basic mechanical principles in skilled artisans rather than the established cognoscenti of his day. Leupold's analysis of the overshot water-wheel is examined in the context of the earlier theoretical work of Antoine Parent and the subsequent experiments of John Smeaton. In spite of an egregious error in calculation, his simple mathematical model is basically sound and may be seen as an early example of the application of ‘technological science’ in the practice of engineering.

Civil engineering management in the Industrial Revolution

Britain's Industrial Revolution was largely brought about by the civil engineers who built the country's canal and rail networks, making inland centralized manufacture viable. This paper reviews the evolution of civil engineering management during this period—from the contracts used by John Smeaton in the mid 18th century to the establishment of today's ‘traditional’ system around 1860. It reveals that many supposedly recent innovations—such as joint ventures, partnering and co-located project teams—have all been done before. What early civil engineers did and said has resounding relevance today.

CIVIL ENGINEERING MANAGEMENT IN THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION.

Britain's Industrial Revolution was largely brought about by the civil engineers who built the country's canal and rail networks, making inland centralized manufacture viable. This paper reviews the evolution of civil engineering management during this period—from the contracts used by John Smeaton in the mid 18th century to the establishment of today's ‘traditional’ system around 1860. It reveals that many supposedly recent innovations—such as joint ventures, partnering and co-located project teams—have all been done before. What early civil engineers did and said has resounding relevance today.

John Watt's map of the Clyde

John Smeaton was engaged from 1755 to 1761 in an abortive attempt to improve the navigation of the river Clyde up to Glasgow. His volumes of Civil and Mechanical Engineering Designs in the Library of the Royal Society contain the maps and plans of the scheme. One is entitled ‘The River of Clyde surveyed by John Watt’. Although surveyed by John Watt in 1734, it was only published posthumously by his nephew James Watt, the famous steam engine improver, in 1759 who revised it with the assistance of his own father and brother. James Watt had helped survey the Clyde in conjunction with Smeaton's schemes in 1758. The background of Smeaton's work is outlined and the story of the revision of the map and its printing in Edinburgh covered. A second edition was run off in 1794 when John Rennie discovered the engraved copper plate at the Edinburgh printers.

The Development of the Concept of Work: A Case where History Can Inform Pedagogy

An historical analysis of the work concept with particular emphasis given to the contributions of John Smeaton and Daniel Bernouilli is provided with a view to enlightening or resolving current difficulties experienced in the teaching and learning of the concept of work and its relationship to kinetic and potential energies. An approach which emphasises the work done by both applied and resisting forces and which gives some technological significance to the (force x distance) definition of work is recommended.

The Papers of Benjamin Henry Latrobe. Series II: The Architectural and Engineering Drawings. Vol. 2: The Architectural Drawings of Benjamin Henry Latrobe. Pts. 1 and 2 ed. by Jeffrey A. Cohen and Charles E. Brownell

TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Book Reviews 629 would have over the region’s ecological destiny,” Steinberg writes. “Call it a stream and private landowners [corporations like Gulf, Texaco, Amerada, and others] would experience a windfall” (p. 60). The protracted legal struggle was fought over whether Grand—Six Mile Lake was a lake or a stream. The problem was, as Steinberg wryly observed, that “[n]one of the meanings given the words lake and stream adequately represented the body of water in question” (p. 68). Touche. The essence of this book is captured in this paradox: real estate isn’t. Writing at thejuncture ofcritical legal theory and environmen­ tal history, Steinberg ushers us into a labyrinthine world devoid of rational gravity. It is all reminiscent of the widow Winchester, who, believing she would die when her mansion near SanJose, California, was completed, continued adding room upon room, staircase upon staircase, all going nowhere. Theodore Steinberg has written a book both scholarly and farcical about private property as shibboleth. I dare say Erasmus himselfwould have applauded Steinberg’s aplomb. Michael Black Mr. Black rents airspace somewhere over San Francisco, California. He is coeditor (with Frank Fischer) ofa recent anthology entitled GreeningEnvironmentalPolicy: The Politics ofa SustainableFuture (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1995), and is completing California’s Last Salmon: The Unnatural Policies ofNatural Resource Agencies (University of California Press, in press). The Papers of Benjamin Henry Latrobe. Series II: The Architectural and EngineeringDrawings. Vol. 2: The ArchitecturalDrawings ofBenjamin Henry Latrobe. Pts. 1 and 2. Edited byJeffreyA. Cohen and Charles E. Brownell. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1994. xxx+326 pp. and xii+327-750 pp; index. $125.00. These two books (denominated “parts” ofone volume) complete the first scholarly edition devoted to the remarkably versatile Benja­ min Henry Latrobe (1764-1820), who claimed for himself, in his own lifetime, the title of “father” to the architectural profession in the United States (p. 12). Architectural historians in this country, still somewhat under the spell of the great man approach to history, have tended to accept his claim uncritically, the effect ofwhich, iron­ ically, has been to minimize the difficulty ofhis achievements as well as to foreshorten the humbling ground of context. Latrobe had the benefit of advanced training in England—under the architect S. P. Cockerell and the engineer John Smeaton—but he had suffered both professional and personal disappointments there before arriv­ ing in Norfolk, Va., in early 1796. The preeminence he attained in his fields in America during two and one-half decades of exacting, poorly paid, often spiritually depleting work was earned the hard way. Others from Britain and France, with comparable talent and professional training, made brief appearances at important con­ 630 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE struction sites in America, but either did not stay or failed to rise to national prominence. They lacked Latrobe’s ambition and determi­ nation, his commitment to science, his ability to engineer—and were either unable or unwilling to adjust their European training to the more demanding, if less structured and sophisticated, eco­ nomic and cultural environment of the new republic. In the end Latrobe’s principal rivals would be his own students. The Architectural Drawings, much like the previous volume in the Latrobe drawings series (Darwin Stapleton, ed., The Engineering Drawings ofBenjamin Henry Latrobe. [New Haven, Conn.: Yale Univer­ sity Press, 1980]), is presented in catalog format. The architectural projects define the entries, arranged more or less chronologically. This not only responds to the scholarly community’s need for a refer­ ence work and guide to the drawings but also gives due emphasis to the variety ofwork Latrobe undertook and to the role ofparticular settings and challenges, roughly as he encountered them. Threequarters of the more than 360 architectural drawings that have sur­ vived—a fraction of the original, much larger corpus—are repro­ duced (more than one-half at large scale; thirty-one images are in color). Despite the catalog format, there is a great deal of commentary in these two oversized books—too much perhaps for those who fail to find the drawings that interest them reproduced satisfactorily here (they must hope for a future CD-ROM version and...

Britishness and Otherness: An Argument

There is no more effective way of bonding together the disparate sections of restless peoples than to unite them against outsiders. [E. J. Hobsbawm,Nations and Nationalism since 1780(Cambridge, 1990), p. 91]Britain is an invented nation, not so much older than the United States. [Peter Scott,Knowledge and Nation(Edinburgh, 1990), p. 168]The morning of Saturday, September 14, 1793, was bitterly cold, and George Macartney, Viscount Macartney of Dervock in the county of Antrim, had been up since four o'clock, making final preparations for his audience with the emperor of China at his summer palace at Jehol, just north of the Great Wall. He stood waiting in the large, silken tent for over an hour before Ch'ien-lung eventually arrived, “seated in an open palanquin, carried by sixteen bearers, attended by numbers of officers bearing flags, standards, and umbrellas.” To the fury of the watching Chinese courtiers who had wanted him to execute the full kowtow (three separate kneelings and nine knockings of the head on the floor), Macartney went down on one knee only and presented the emperor with a letter from George III in a gold casket covered with diamonds. He followed this with other gifts—pottery, the best that Josiah Wedgwood's factory in Staffordshire could produce, a diving bell patented by the Anglo-Scottish engineer John Smeaton, sword blades from Birmingham, an orrery, a telescope, and some clocks.