Watt morever had, about 1767-70, a large practice as a constructive engineer and sur veyor, and prepared plans for a number of canals and harbors, chiefly in Scotland.
As manufactures increased, partly owing to the impetus given to them by Watt's inventions, partly as a result of the industrial development at the termination of the Napoleonic wars, the improvement of means of communication and greater rapidity of transit became of first class importance, and as the roads throughout Great Britain were at the end of the 18th century in an execrable condition we find attention more and mdre concentrated upon the construction of inland canals and new and improved roads.
The man who more than any other aided in this improvement was Thomas Telford (1757 1834), the son of a Dumfriesshire shepherd and in early life trained as a stone mason. After the construction of a house for the Commis sioner of Portsmouth dockyard he became sur veyor of public works for Shropshire and con structed a bridge over the Severn at Montford in 1792. The construction of the Elsemere canal in 1793 lead to his being employed in the construction of most of the chief canals in Great Britain, from the Caledonian in 1804 to the Birmingham and Liverpool junction in 1825, as well as the Gotha canal in Sweden in 1810. He constructed and perfected most of the main roads in Scotland, the north of England, and Wales, involving the erection of the Menai and Conway bridges, besides numerous others of less magnitude. He also made many continental roads in Austria, and was also employed in harbor construction.
He lived a bachelor in London at the Salo pian Coffee House, afterward the Ship Restau rant, and two years after the establishment of the institution of civil engineers in 1818 he was elected president for life. The meetings were thereafter held in the Ship Restaurant, whither the institution removed from the Ken dal Coffee House in Fleet street, its earliest home.
Meanwhile, mechanical road traction, steam barge, and ship propulsion had advanced with the advance of the steam engine and with George Stephenson's triumph at Rainhill in 1829, railway construction had commenced and was fast monopolizing attention as the most efficient and rapid means of communication The names of Brunel, Clarke Russell, Whit worth and a host of others claim recognition in the rapid advance of engineering both at sea and on land which now followed, but enough has been said to enable a grasp of the rise of the profession and the lines of its gradual devel opment to be realized.
The progress in organization of the profes sion which has since taken place has been due firstly to the commanding position in the pro fession attained by the institution of civil en gineers and secondly to the development and or ganization of engineering scientific education which has taken place in the technical and uni versity colleges and universities throughout the kingdom.
Institution of Civil This insti tution founded, as already said, in 1818, obtained a royal charter of incorporation in 1828, its objects being—as described by Tredgold in a statement prepared for the council in applying for a charter the general advancement of mechanical science, and more particularly for promoting the acquisition of that species of knowledge which constitutes the profession of a civil engineer, being the art of directing the great sources of power in nature for the use and convenience of man as the means of pro duction and of traffic in states both for internal and external trade as applied in the construction of roads, bridges, aqueducts, canals, river navi gation, and docks for internal Intercourse and exchange, and in the construction of ports, har bors, moles, breakwaters and lighthouses, and in the art of navigation by artificial power for the purposes of commerce, and in the construc tion and adaptation of machinery and in the drainage of cities and towns.° This is the earliest definition of civil en gineering and the profession of the civil engi neer therefore embraces all non-military engi neers who are laboring to °direct the great sources of power in nature to the use and con venience of man° whatever be the special corner of this wide field of operations to which any individual member may be devoting himself.