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Smeatonian Society of Civil Engineers

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Joanna Kennedy (born 22 July 1950), is a British civil engineer and project manager who was Global Leader for Programme and Project Management at Arup until 2013 (a director from 1996). She is a patron of Women into Science and Engineering (WISE) , which she helped launch in 1984. From 2015 until 2023 she was a Trustee of the National Portrait Gallery , latterly as deputy chair of the Trustee Board, and she chaired the project board for the Inspiring People redevelopment which was completed on time for the gallery's reopening, after three years closure, in June 2023. In 2024 the project was short-listed for the RIBA Stirling prize .

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34-700: The Smeatonian Society of Civil Engineers was founded in England in 1771. It was the first engineering society to be formed anywhere in the world, and remains the oldest. It was originally known as the Society of Civil Engineers , being renamed following its founder's death. The first known formal meeting of civil engineers in Britain took place at the King's Head tavern in Holborn, London, on 15 March 1771, when seven of

68-481: A Junior School House at Leeds Grammar School, which lead singer Ricky Wilson attended) by the indie rock band Kaiser Chiefs , who are natives of Leeds. Joanna Kennedy Born Joanna Alicia Gore Ormsby, in London , Kennedy was educated at The Abbey School, Reading and Queen Anne's School, Caversham and won a scholarship to Lady Margaret Hall , University of Oxford ; she was one of just three females among over

102-473: A dining and discussion club of around sixty senior professional engineers, 'distinguished for their work in the theory or practice of design, manufacture, construction or management in the various fields of engineering', up to eighteen retired Members Emeritus and up to fifteen Honorary Members. The late Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh (elected 1953) served as president in 1971 and was an active participant until 2017. Anne, Princess Royal (elected 2017) accepted

136-488: A force pump to maintain the pressure and fresh air inside a diving bell . This bell, built for the Hexham Bridge project, was not intended for underwater work, but in 1790 the design was updated to enable it to be used underwater on the breakwater at Ramsgate Harbour. Smeaton is also credited with explaining the fundamental differences and benefits of overshot versus undershot water wheels. Smeaton experimented with

170-597: A hundred engineering students and graduated with first class honours in Engineering Science and the ICE Prize. She is the mother of two sons, one of them is the musician Pearson Sound . Kennedy joined Ove Arup & Partners , consulting engineers, in 1972 and her projects as a design engineer included the M25 Runnymede Bridge and St Paul's Thameslink station . She was a founder of

204-610: A mathematical instrument maker (working with Henry Hindley ), developing, among other instruments, a pyrometer to study material expansion. In 1750, his premises were in the Great Turnstile in Holborn. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1753 and in 1759 won the Copley Medal for his research into the mechanics of waterwheels and windmills . His 1759 paper "An Experimental Enquiry Concerning

238-479: Is a list of presidents of the Society from its inception. Honorary Members are shown in italics. In 1793 the Society was reconstituted without a President. The post was reintroduced as an annually elected position in 1841: John Smeaton John Smeaton FRS (8 June 1724 – 28 October 1792) was an English civil engineer responsible for the design of bridges, canals , harbours and lighthouses . He

272-632: Is credited by some with inventing the cast-iron axle shaft for water wheels ). In 1782 he built the Chimney Mill at Spital Tongues in Newcastle upon Tyne , the first 5-sailed smock mill in Britain. He also improved Thomas Newcomen 's atmospheric engine , erecting one at Chacewater mine, Wheal Busy , in Cornwall in 1775 which was both highly efficient and the most powerful at the time. In 1789 Smeaton applied an idea by Denis Papin , by using

306-940: Is highly regarded by other engineers, having contributed to the Lunar Society and founded the Society of Civil Engineers in 1771. He coined the term civil engineers to distinguish them from military engineers graduating from the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich . The Society was a forerunner of the Institution of Civil Engineers , established in 1818, and was renamed the Smeatonian Society of Civil Engineers in 1830. His pupils included canal engineer William Jessop and architect and engineer Benjamin Latrobe . The pioneering constant of proportionality describing pressure varying inversely as

340-401: Is important in the history, rediscovery of, and development of modern cement , identifying the compositional requirements needed to obtain "hydraulicity" in lime; work which led ultimately to the invention of Portland cement . Portland cement led to the re-emergence of concrete as a modern building material, largely due to Smeaton's influence. Recommended by the Royal Society, Smeaton designed

374-403: Is known as Smeaton's Tower . In 2020 a Cornish granite bust of Smeaton by Philip Chatfield, commissioned by The Box, Plymouth and funded by Trinity House , was installed in the tower's lantern chamber before its reopening. The bust is based on a plaster one donated by the Institution of Civil Engineers in about 1980, but later removed for safety reasons. Deciding that he wanted to focus on

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408-651: Is one of six civil engineers depicted in the Stephenson stained glass window, designed by William Wailes and unveiled in Westminster Abbey in 1862. A memorial stone commemorating Smeaton himself was unveiled in the Abbey on 7 November 1994, by Noel Ordman, President of the Smeatonian Society of Civil Engineers . John Smeaton Academy , a secondary school in the suburbs of Leeds adjacent to

442-524: The vis viva theory of German Gottfried Leibniz , an early formulation of conservation of energy . This led him into conflict with members of the academic establishment who rejected Leibniz's theory, believing it inconsistent with Sir Isaac Newton 's conservation of momentum . In his 1759 paper "An Experimental Enquiry Concerning the Natural Powers of Water and Wind to Turn Mills and Other Machines Depending on Circular Motion" Smeaton developed

476-636: The National Maritime Museum Cornwall , Hackney Empire , the Horniman Museum and she led the design team for the remodelled King's Cross St Pancras tube station . She was Arup's project management director from 2008 to 2013 for the Francis Crick Institute and from 2009 to 2013 project director for the planned Defence and National Rehabilitation Centre . She was a non-executive director of

510-466: The Newcomen steam engine and made marked improvements around the time James Watt was building his first engines ( c.  late 1770s ). Smeaton died after suffering a stroke while walking in the garden of his family home at Austhorpe, and was buried in the parish church at Whitkirk , West Yorkshire. His surviving daughters erected a memorial to him and his wife which is on the chancel wall of

544-760: The Pendas Fields estate near Austhorpe, is named after Smeaton. He is also commemorated at the University of Plymouth , where the Mathematics and Technology Department is housed in a building named after him. A viaduct in the final stage of the Leeds Inner Ring Road , opened in 2008, was named after him. Smeaton is mentioned in the song " I Predict a Riot " (as a symbol of a more dignified and peaceful epoch in Leeds history; and in reference to

578-488: The 'Smeaton Coefficient'. Smeaton's water wheel experiments were conducted on a small scale model with which he tested various configurations over a period of seven years. The resultant increase in efficiency in water power contributed to the Industrial Revolution . Over the period 1759–1782 he performed a series of further experiments and measurements on water wheels that led him to support and champion

612-434: The Natural Powers of Water and Wind to Turn Mills and Other Machines Depending on Circular Motion" addressed the relationship between pressure and velocity for objects moving in air (Smeaton noted that the table doing so was actually contributed by "my friend Mr Rouse" "an ingenious gentleman of Harborough, Leicestershire" and calculated on the basis of Rouse's experiments), and his concepts were subsequently developed to devise

646-488: The Reverend William Whewell (Honorary Member 1836) at a meeting on 14 June 1843 was accepted, that a Greek motto (probably from Aristotle) should be added to the summons card: "Τεχνη κρατουμεν ὢν φυσει νικωμεθα" "By Art we master what would master us". Both mottos are still in use. From 1793 the renewed Society was to be "for promoting and communicating every branch of knowledge useful and necessary to

680-520: The church. Due to the decay of the rock beneath the Eddystone Lighthouse the structure needed to be replaced. When the upper section of Smeaton's lighthouse (which included the lantern, store and living and watch room) was about to be removed, it was suggested that some of it be brought to Whitkirk and set up as a memorial to him. Unfortunately, the project was deemed too expensive as it was estimated that it would cost around £1800. He

714-582: The concepts and data which became the basis for the Smeaton coefficient , the lift equation used by the Wright brothers . It has the form: where: The Wright brothers determined with wind tunnels that the Smeaton coefficient value of 0.005 was incorrect and should have been 0.0033. In modern analysis, the lift coefficient is normalised by the dynamic pressure instead of the Smeaton coefficient. Smeaton

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748-700: The firm's project management practice in 1990, became its leader for Europe in 2006 and was appointed Global Leader for Programme and Project Management in 2010. The practice was named the APM Project Management Company of the Year in both 2007 and 2012. She was a Trustee of the Ove Arup Foundation from 2010 to 2020. She was project director for redevelopments at the Southbank Centre designed by Richard Rogers ,

782-532: The first year they were joined by John Golborne, William Black, Robert Whitworth and Hugh Henshall , and these eleven were known as the Original Members. When the Society was founded its title was the "Society of Civil Engineers". When William Mylne started a new Minute Book in 1822 he used the heading "Engineers' Society" in the reports of each session until 1869, when he changed it to "Smeatonian Society". The Rules and Regulations issued in 1830 bore

816-563: The invitation to be 2021 president, fifty years after her father, and on 8 September 2021 presided at the Society's two hundred and fiftieth anniversary dinner at Trinity House , Tower Hill . Since 1975 the Society has often met at the headquarters of the Institution of Civil Engineers . The Latin motto "Omnia in Numero, Pondere et Mensura" was added to the summons card in 1793; it is adapted from Wisdom of Solomon 11:20 "(Thou hast ordered) all things by number, weight and measure". The proposal of

850-471: The leading engineers of the time agreed to establish a Society of Civil Engineers. The leading light of the new Society was John Smeaton who was the first engineer to describe himself as a "Civil Engineer", having coined the term to distinguish himself from the military engineers graduating from the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich . The other founding members were Thomas Yeoman , Robert Mylne , Joseph Nickalls, John Grundy , John Thompson and James King. In

884-518: The lucrative field of civil engineering, he commenced an extensive series of commissions, including: Smeaton is considered to be the first expert witness to appear in an English court. Because of his expertise in engineering, he was called to testify in court for a case related to the silting-up of the harbour at Wells-next-the-Sea in Norfolk in 1782. He also acted as a consultant on the disastrous 63-year-long New Harbour at Rye , designed to combat

918-804: The property company Native Land from 2015 to 2023 and a director of the ERA Foundation from 2014 to 2024. Kennedy's other appointments have included Vice-Chairman of the Port of London Authority , a Commissioner of the Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851 , a Trustee of the Science Museum and a member of the Engineering Council . She was a Trustee of Cumberland Lodge from 2001 to 2011 and 2013 to 2018 and

952-486: The silting of the port of Winchelsea . The project is now known informally as "Smeaton's Harbour", but despite the name his involvement was limited and occurred more than 30 years after work on the harbour commenced. It closed in 1839. Employing his skills as a mechanical engineer, he devised a water engine for the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew in 1761 and a watermill at Alston , Cumbria in 1767 (he

986-418: The square of the velocity when applied to objects moving in air was named Smeaton's coefficient in his honour. Based on his concepts and data, it was used by the Wright brothers in their pursuit of the first successful heavier-than-air aircraft . Between 1860 and 1894 the design of the reverse side of the old penny coin showed (behind Britannia ) a depiction of Smeaton’s Eddystone lighthouse. Smeaton

1020-421: The third Eddystone Lighthouse (1755–59). He pioneered the use of ' hydraulic lime ' (a form of mortar that will set under water) and developed a technique involving dovetailed blocks of granite in the building of the lighthouse. His lighthouse remained in use until 1877 when the rock underlying the structure's foundations had begun to erode; it was dismantled and partially rebuilt at Plymouth Hoe where it

1054-409: The title "Smeatonian Society of Civil Engineers" for the first time, which has been its title ever since. Major Henry Watson was the first military engineer to be elected to membership in 1774. Eventually the Smeatonian Society of Civil Engineers became more of a dining club and a group of younger engineers began to demand a better grouping to aid their profession and the Institution of Civil Engineers

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1088-1082: The various and important branches of public and private works in civil engineering". There were three classes of membership: First Class - "those who are actually employed in Designing, & forming, Works of different kinds, in the Various Departments of Engineering". Second Class - "Men of Science and Gentlemen of Fame and Fortune" (Honorary Members). Third Class - "Various Artists, whose professions and employments, are necessary & useful thereto as well as connected with Civil Engineering" (Honorary Members). Women elected include Jean Venables (2003), Joanna Kennedy (2006), Julia Elton FSA (Honorary 2010), Dame Julia Higgins (2012), Bridget Rosewell (Honorary 2016), Dame Ann Dowling (2017), Dame Helen Atkinson (2017), Dame Judith Hackitt (2018), Faith Wainwright (2019), Sue Kershaw (2021), Michele Dix (2022), Elaine Martin (2022), Julie Bregulla (2022) and Dame Dervilla Mitchell (2022). The following

1122-540: Was also a capable mechanical engineer and an eminent physicist . Smeaton was the first self-proclaimed "civil engineer", and is often regarded as the "father of civil engineering ". He pioneered the use of hydraulic lime in concrete , using pebbles and powdered brick as aggregate. Smeaton was associated with the Lunar Society . Smeaton was born in Austhorpe , Leeds , England. After studying at Leeds Grammar School he joined his father's law firm, but left to become

1156-456: Was formed in 1818. The unveiling of a memorial stone to Smeaton in Westminster Abbey on 7 November 1994, by Noel Ordman, President, was described in The Times as 'a triumph for the Smeatonian Society'. Smeaton is also one of six civil engineers depicted in the Stephenson stained glass window, designed by William Wailes and unveiled in 1862. The Society continues to this day, mainly as

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