ABSTRACT
Inland navigations engaged Smeaton's attention during practically the whole of his career and were a major preoccupation of the years 1760–73. In 1759, J. Smeaton was in Parliament to support another difficult proposed river improvement, that of the Upper Wear. His scheme provided for twelve locks and several cuts between Biddick Ford near Washington and the city of Durham. In the early 1760s, interest revived in building a canal across the waist of Scotland, Smeaton was the obvious man to consult. There were then many canalised rivers in the British Isles, some incorporating considerable lengths of artificial cut, but few canals. In 1771, he had reported briefly on a problem concerning the Birmingham Canal, but his main contributions were subsequent to 1776. By that year water was becoming increasingly scarce; Samuel Bull, the company's engineer, therefore ordered from Boulton & Watt a small steam engine to pump into the canal's Smethwick summit level.
