Engineering: A Beginner's Guide

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The evolution of the engineer

Some activities have a clear relationship to their ancient predecessors. Mathematics is one example. However much it has developed since then, ancient activities that involved dealing with quantities and ratios through numbers or other abstract means count as mathematics today. The same goes for philosophy. Anyone who spent a significant part of their day considering the meaning of life and how to live it – either strolling through the marketplace like Socrates or sitting alone in a barrel – counts as a philosopher. However naïve and uninteresting the resulting philosophy, it is still a contender as proto-philosophy.

Engineering is not so clear cut. It is obvious that activities resembling the aims and purposes of engineering have been around since Homo erectus first started to build shelters. We might consider the first uses of flints to cut or create fire as examples of early engineering, but is it right to count stone-age tool makers as engineers? Since we now distinguish between engineering and manual arts and trades this does not seem wholly accurate – after all, not everyone who masters the use of tools is an engineer; dabbling in home decoration however fancy your power tools is not sufficient. Whilst we call it mathematics when a child subtracts numbers of apples from numbers of pears, however different it is to the work of a professor spinning out proofs in his office, we do not call amateur construction work engineering.

So when should we say that real engineering emerged? There are a number of ways to tell this story, and all depend on arguable decisions about what constitutes an engineer.

How old is engineering?

One way to map out the history of engineering is to trace it back through all of those activities that significantly resemble what we would now count as engineering. Activities can be similar to engineering for a number of reasons. For example, there is nothing in existence now like the Egyptian pyramids and no living engineers work on similar projects. However, the building of those edifices involved the application of mathematical relationships to create a physical structure and required complex, large-scale organisation of manpower and resources. Both of these are characteristic of contemporary engineering. However, the Egyptian pyramids seem to differ somewhat from modern engineering in that engineering projects are focused on meeting some useful purpose that can serve humanity and improve quality of life. The pyramids, impressive though they are, have an other-worldly purpose that is rarely present in modern engineering endeavours.

In ancient Greece there were many activities that seem to be precursors to what we might now call ‘engineering science’ – the study of the mathematical and physical principles underlying the structures and machines that we build and use. For example, Archimedes developed an analysis of how levers function, and he was so confident in his work that he believed he could apply it to position a lever that would move the earth itself. However, the ancient Greeks were not so keen on getting their hands dirty, preferring rather to sit and contemplate the nature of fulcra and pulleys. Therefore, such work is perhaps better characterised as applied or applicable mathematics than as engineering. The Romans did rather better, focussing their attention on more practical matters such as building viaducts and sewage systems. Though perhaps not done with as much application of mathematical principles as modern engineering, this work surely deserves to be called engineering of some kind, even if rather rudimentary.

Activities of the medieval period, or the unfairly labelled ‘dark ages’, have a close link with modern engineering. The kinds of structures built in medieval Europe, vast vaulted cathedrals which ingeniously incorporate structural support into their decoration through the use of devices such as flying buttresses, can be compared to ambitious structural engineering projects. Although the craftsmen behind their construction were described as master builders, and might be seen as similar to modern architects, their work certainly encompassed engineering tasks. After all, nowadays one would not entrust such grand and ambitious structures to architects and construction workers alone without the input of skilled structural engineers. At the same time, the Islamic Golden Age brought with it great leaps in mechanical invention. A central figure of this period was Al-Jazari, an inventor and craftsman who published his life’s work in his Book of Ingenious Mechanical Devices. Among those devices were mechanisms that were crucial to mechanical engineering for many centuries, such as water-raising pumps, and sophisticated curiosities such as hand-washing automata.

In all of these periods there are certainly activities that foreshadow the work of contemporary engineers. However, it is difficult to map out the story of engineering in terms of what people do, as many activities can resemble engineering in many ways. Physicists and chemists do work that is similar to engineering in some ways, but we would not call them engineers. It is interesting, therefore, to trace the engineering discipline back through the etymology of the word ‘engineer’, to see when the discipline first got its name.

The word ‘engineer’ is generally claimed to be rooted in the Latin term ingenium or ingeniatorum, meaning, respectively, ingenuity or one who possesses or exercises ingenuity. This is, of course, the same root from which the English word ‘ingenious’ springs, meaning inventive and novel, implying that central to the concept of engineering is that of inventiveness and creativity. In the medieval period, those craftsmen working in the military on catapults, or other devices of war, were known as ‘ingeniators’. A version of the title persisted in the renaissance period, with Leonardo Da Vinci proudly bearing the title ‘ingeniarius ducalis’ at one point in his career. Does this title indicate that he was an engineer in the modern sense? His work, as described in the box below, certainly encompasses engineering activities, and engineers are often keen to claim him as one of their own. However, the reasons for being called ‘ingeniarius’ are slightly different from the criteria we use for calling someone an engineer today.

The word ‘ingenium’ is also the root of the English word ‘engine’. We might assume that engineers are so-called because they work with engines, but of course the medieval ‘ingeniator’ did not work with anything like modern engineering machines such as steam or combustion engines. In the medieval and early modern times, ‘ingeniators’ were so-called because they worked in the military, with ‘engines’ of war. This category covered all manner of early war technology, such as catapults and cannons, and ingeniators would devise, build and maintain these. Indeed, Leonardo Da Vinci’s engineering work focuses heavily on designs of guns and other bombardments – the renaissance machinery essential to win out in a siege. So the title ‘ingeniator’ primarily relates to work in the military rather than general engineering.

The English word ‘engineer’ made its direct entry into the language through the French word ‘ingénieur’. Here, again, the original uses of the word apply to activities within warfare. The ingénieurs in the French military were still those members of the army who dealt with and maintained engines of war, but in the French army they had a rather lofty status compared to their earlier counterparts. They were, in 1676, formed into the corps du génie, a group of soldiers who received special training in military construction and who began to hone the art of making engines of war and creating the infrastructure – roads, fortification and such – that the military required. Again, the word ‘ingénieur’ denoted a certain member of the military with specific skills and abilities.

The term ‘engineer’ now refers to a much wider class of people than those who work in support of the military. Therefore there are weaknesses in telling the story based on the name ‘engineer’, as it does not tell us when the wide-ranging discipline that we now recognise as engineering sprang up. However, it is undeniable that military activities had a significant role in shaping the modern engineers, as is seen by looking at the history of engineering education and training.

LEONARDO DA VINCI

Leonardo Da Vinci was a painter – a painter of such skill that his name and works live on as probably the most famous in the Western world. However, he was a man of the renaissance, dabbling in and even excelling at a wide range of disciplines; in Leonardo’s case this included engineering. Leonardo identified himself as an engineer. There is evidence of a letter of introduction by Leonardo in which he sets out in detail his engineering skills. Military engineering skills feature heavily – producing designs for catapults and cannons, and developing methods for making wrought metal to manufacture cannons in novel ways for added strength. However, also included are bridge design and town planning; hydraulics, including studies on taming the course of rivers; and building automata for entertainment at grand events. It is well known that Leonardo designed flying machines and a helicopter and there is evidence that he even trialled these – but to no success.

Leonardo’s notebooks containing his thoughts and ideas on engineering are incomplete and it seems that many of his thoughts were too. Hence, he has not made the impact on the history of engineering that, say, Galileo did in his work on engineering science. Some have even argued that he was a fairly ordinary engineer and that he created nothing that did not have precedent in the work of his peers or predecessors.¹ Perhaps it was his average performance in this area compared to his genius in the area of painting which means that this career has completely eclipsed his engineering efforts. Or perhaps it is because modern technologies – in particular aircraft, helicopters and submarines – have completely surpassed any work he did on these areas, whilst no advances in art (if there are such) could ever show the Mona Lisa to be a primitive or poor painting. Whatever the reason, it is interesting to consider whether Leonardo would be surprised, even disappointed that this was his primary legacy. It is certainly noteworthy that the renaissance differs from the current age in terms of the status and perception of engineers. Whereas now, to be a successful artist is considered noble and noteworthy and to be an engineer is thought relatively modest, in Leonardo’s time to make and to imagine things of a technical nature was as lofty as creating fine art.

The French military of the later seventeenth century was the birthplace of engineering as a distinct profession with a specialised mode of training and education. The corps du génie was a body of soldiers in which apprentices, taught in training camps, were instructed in the specialised arts of military technologies. This was established in 1676 and was followed 30 years later by the corps des ponts et chaussées (bridges and roads). This latter body focused on establishing the infrastructure needed by both the military and civilians. A school was established in 1747 to train students specifically in the arts of civilian engineering, the École des Ponts et Chaussées, which still takes students now (known as the ENPC). However, the first school to teach a curriculum that bears a close resemblance to the engineering education we see now was the École Polytechnique, set up in 1794 as the École Centrale des Travaux Publics.

The French engineering education was way ahead of the rest of the world; it was the only country that was teaching engineering in a principled way, away from the everyday work of the job. The US was quick to follow, however, and engineering schools were developing out of military training schools, beginning with the establishment of West Point (now United States Military Academy at West Point). Some years after its establishment it took on the curriculum of the French military engineering schools and by the 1830s numerous successful engineering schools were developing in the US that taught some version of the same curriculum.

The United Kingdom was slow to follow, however. Throughout the Eighteenth century the UK had no specialised training for engineers either in the military or the civilian worlds. Engineers learned through apprenticeships – being trained by observing and assisting an accomplished engineer. Only for some engineers did this on-the-job training follow a university education. Well-known engineers such as Thomas Telford and James Watt started their careers as apprentices to craftsmen, learning practical skills rather than theory. However, despite their manual training, their role was that of an engineer. They were involved in design, in planning works for a client and contracting others to actually carry out the labour, rather than carrying out the manual work themselves. John Smeaton (1724–1792) was one of the first engineers to work in this way in the UK, and it was he who first referred to himself as a ‘civil engineer’, ascribing the title to himself on a report he prepared in 1768.

Once we get to Smeaton, we get to a point in history where we can uncontroversially identify an individual as a modern engineer, working outside of the military. However, the stories above show that there are a number of different paths to this point in history, and a number of stopping points at which engineering might be argued to have emerged. They demonstrate that retelling the history of engineering is a difficult matter. Engineering was not born fully fledged at some distinct point in history but evolved over an extended period of time. At different points during that period, in different parts of the world, activities close to modern engineering can be spotted, and individuals identified who come close to modern engineers, but it took some time for the distinct discipline to emerge.

The emergence of a profession

The long process of engineering’s evolution was followed by a more rapid phase of self-organisation in engineering. As engineering activity became more intensive and the ambitions of engineers greater, engineers felt the need to establish themselves, and to be recognised in the public eye, as a profession. A profession brings with it a body of agreed knowledge shared by members. It usually involves specific training or qualifications, and it requires its members to commit themselves to shared standards of work and agreed ethical principles. While the emergence of an engineering education in France and the US was therefore central to engineering becoming a profession, another major milestone was the establishment of a professional engineering body.

The lack of a formal education system for engineers in the UK left some young engineers in need of a source of information and education that could support them in their development as engineers. It was this need that led Henry Palmer to organise a meeting on Friday 2 January 1818 in Kendal’s Coffee House, Fleet Street, London. Palmer’s opening speech gave the following view of engineering:

The Engineer is a mediator between the philosopher and the working mechanic and like an interpreter between two foreigners, must understand the language of both, hence the absolute necessity of possessing both practical and theoretical knowledge.

This illustrates the unique nature of the engineering profession that was emerging. It was more than just the manual work of the craftsman or labourer, but unlike pure science it was directly related to the practical tasks of the artisan. This new kingdom needed a constitution and the Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE) was the first organisation to fill this role. It was initiated by a group of young men whose ambition was to provide an opportunity for engineers to receive instruction and guidance, and who were willing to share their growing experience and expertise in order to achieve this. The group appointed Thomas Telford as its first president. Telford was an engineer of significant reputation and influence, who had spent his