Engineering was traditionally an exclusively military profession. Smeaton adopted the new title to clarify that his infrastructure projects were built for civilian purposes.

Smeaton needed a material that would cure in the ocean to build the Eddystone Lighthouse. He reverse-engineered lost Roman techniques to create a water-resistant mortar.

Smeaton's formula calculated air pressure based on wind speed. The Wrights actually discovered his widely accepted 18th-century coefficient was inaccurate and corrected it.

Smeaton built a working scale model to test various paddle configurations. His experiments proved that overshot wheels were far more efficient than undershot designs.