John Smeaton

8th June 1724 - 28th October 1792

John Smeaton was born and died in the family house in the Austhorpe area of this parish. He is buried in the church and was given the accolade of 'The Father of Civil Engineering in Britain'.

His most famous work is the lighthouse on Eddystone Reef, 14 miles south of Plymouth. This was the first lighthouse to be built of stone and he began the project 250 years ago in 1756, completing it in 1759.

The Eddystone lighthouse is also famous because it was depicted on the back of the old penny, just behind Britannia. This is the lighthouse that now stands on Plymouth Hoe. A model of it adorns his monument in the chancel and it has been used by Austhorpe Primary School for their badge - a local school.

Smeaton memorial - whitkirk church

The story of the building of the lighthouse is told in a novel by Christopher Severn, called Smeaton's Tower, published by Seafarer Books in 2005.

John Smeaton attended Leeds Grammar School, leaving at 16 to work in his father's law practice. He gave that up and became an apprentice to a mathematical instrument maker, setting up his own business around 1750.

In addition to his lighthouse, John Smeaton designed an impressive list of bridges (Aberdeen, Banff, Coldstream, Hexham, Newark viaduck, Perth). He was responsible for the Forth-Clyde canal, the Calder navigation and 8 miles of canal at Ripon; Ramsgate Harbour and Pumps at London Bridge. He discovered hydraulic lime (calcinations of limestone containing clay which harden under water). There is a mathematical formula named after him called the Smeaton Coefficeient (which concerns the relationship between pressure and velocity for objects moving in air).

old penny