First Civil Engineer

John Smeaton:

John Smeaton. Engineer and eminent British physicist, responsible for the design of bridges, canals, ports and lighthouses. It has passed into posterity for having erected the lighthouse of Eddystone, a great work of Civil Engineering in which he introduced two great personal innovations: the material used (concrete or hydraulic lime) and how to place the blocks of granite. He published his experimental studies on the motive force of water and wind, considered for a long time as a classic in the field. He is often regarded as the "father of civil engineering."