Credit: ©The Royal Society
    Image number: RS.18971

    Hygrometers and air pump

    Date
    1758
    Creator
    John Smeaton (1724 - 1792, British) , Civil engineer
    Object type
    Archive reference number
    Material
    Technique
    Subject
    Content object
    Description
    Two sketches: profile view of two chord tension hygrometers, showing the main body, housing the chord, and the scale, and a perspective view of an air pump.

    Inscribed: ‘See Mr Smeaton’s paper on a new hygrometer Phil Trans […]’ in reference to the paper where the hygrometer sketches are printed, ‘XXIV. Description of a new hygrometer’, vol. 61.

    And: '1st Sketch of Smeaton's Air Pump by Mr Wilson 1748 [...]'

    Original drawing from Designs by the late John Smeaton made on various occasions in the course of his employment as a Civil Engineer from the year 175[?] to 179[?], Volume 4. Containing Designs for Bridges and Buildings. Collected and arranged by John Farey, 1821.

    John Smeaton (1724-1792) was a British civil engineer, he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1753.

    John Farey (1766-1826) was a British geologist and surveyor, he worked on the published reports of John Smeaton’s work between 1809 and 1812.
    Object history
    Smeaton’s Designs were received by bequest of Mr Edward Farey in November 1913 as indicated in the copies of outgoing correspondence bound in the New Letter Books of the Royal Society, NLB/49/185 and NLB/49/312.

    The collection was originally purchased after Smeaton’s death in 1795 by Sir Joseph Banks, President of the Royal Society and member of the Committee of the Smeaton Society of Civil Engineers. The committee undertook to publish a comprehensive selection of reports on the drawings which was entrusted to John Farey sr (1766-1826) and assisted by his better-known son John Farey jr (1791-1851) mechanical engineer and Fellow of the Royal Society. The work began in 1809 and resulted in three published volumes, Reports of the late John Smeaton FRS, made on various occasions of his employment as a civil engineer, London, 1812.
    Associated place
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