Joshua Field FRS (1786 – 11 August 1863) was a British

civil engineer A civil engineer is a person who practices civil engineering – the application of planning, designing, constructing, maintaining, and operating infrastructure while protecting the public and environmental health, as well as improving existing i ...

and

mechanical engineer Mechanical may refer to: Machine * Machine (mechanical), a system of mechanisms that shape the actuator input to achieve a specific application of output forces and movement * Mechanical calculator, a device used to perform the basic operations o ...

. Field was born in Hackney in 1786, his father was John Field a corn and seed merchant who was later to become Master of the

Worshipful Company of Merchant Taylors ] The Worshipful Company of Merchant Taylors is one of the 110 Livery company, livery companies of the City of London. The Company, originally known as the ''Guild and Fraternity of St John the Baptist in the City of London'', was founded prio ...

. Field was a pupil of dockyard engineer

Simon Goodrich Simon Goodrich (1773–1847) was an engineer to the British Navy Board. Life He was said to have been born 28 October 1773 in Suffolk. His education and training is unknown. In 1796 he was appointed draughtsman in the office of Sir Samuel Benth ...

from 1803 to 1805. Commissioned by

Samuel Bentham Sir Samuel Bentham (11 January 1757 – 31 May 1831) was a noted English mechanical engineer and naval architect credited with numerous innovations, particularly related to naval architecture, including weapons. He was the only surviving sibli ...

, the Inspector-general of naval works, he worked with Samuel Goodrich to develop tools for mass-producing ships' blocks at

Portsmouth Dockyard His Majesty's Naval Base, Portsmouth (HMNB Portsmouth) is one of three operating bases in the United Kingdom for the Royal Navy (the others being HMNB Clyde and HMNB Devonport). Portsmouth Naval Base is part of the city of Portsmouth; it is lo ...

. The block mills they designed required ten unskilled men to take the place of 110 skilled craftsmen, and have been recognised as the first use of machine tools for mass production. They were built by

Henry Maudslay Henry Maudslay ( pronunciation and spelling) (22 August 1771 – 14 February 1831) was an English machine tool innovator, tool and die maker, and inventor. He is considered a founding father of machine tool technology. His inventions were an ...

between 1802 and 1806, and represented the first steam-powered manufactory in any dockyard. He then joined Maudslay to form the firm of Messrs.

Maudslay, Sons and Field Maudslay, Sons and Field was an engineering company based in Lambeth, London. History The company was founded by Henry Maudslay as Henry Maudslay and Company in 1798 and was later reorganised into Maudslay, Sons and Field in 1833 after his so ...

Lambeth Lambeth () is a district in South London, England, in the London Borough of Lambeth, historically in the County of Surrey. It is situated south of Charing Cross. The population of the London Borough of Lambeth was 303,086 in 2011. The area ex ...

. One of their projects was to build engines for the

SS Great Western SS ''Great Western'' of 1838, was a wooden-hulled paddle-wheel steamship with sails the first steamship purpose-built for crossing the Atlantic, and the initial unit of the Great Western Steamship Company. She was the largest passenger ship in ...

's Atlantic crossing of 1838. He was a prolific engineer working with the

Atlantic Telegraph Company The Atlantic Telegraph Company was a company formed on 6 November 1856 to undertake and exploit a commercial telegraph cable across the Atlantic ocean, the first such telecommunications link. History Cyrus Field, American businessman and fi ...

on machinery for cable laying, the

Metropolitan Board of Works The Metropolitan Board of Works (MBW) was the principal instrument of local government in a wide area of Middlesex, Surrey, and Kent, defined by the Metropolis Management Act 1855, from December 1855 until the establishment of the London Coun ...

on sewage systems and

Isambard Kingdom Brunel Isambard Kingdom Brunel (; 9 April 1806 – 15 September 1859) was a British civil engineer who is considered "one of the most ingenious and prolific figures in engineering history," "one of the 19th-century engineering giants," and "one ...

on his steamships. Field joined seven other young engineers who, in 1817, decided to found the

Institution of Civil Engineers The Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE) is an independent professional association for civil engineers and a charitable body in the United Kingdom. Based in London, ICE has over 92,000 members, of whom three-quarters are located in the UK, whi ...

as a more accessible institution than the established but élitist

Society of Civil Engineers The Smeatonian Society of Civil Engineers was founded in England in 1771. It was the first engineering society to be formed anywhere in the world, and remains the oldest. It was originally known as the Society of Civil Engineers, being renamed fo ...

founded by

John Smeaton John Smeaton (8 June 1724 – 28 October 1792) was a British civil engineer responsible for the design of bridges, canals, harbours and lighthouses. He was also a capable mechanical engineer and an eminent physicist. Smeaton was the firs ...

in 1771. He served as their vice-president in 1837, and he continued to hold that office until elected president on 18 January 1848, being the first

to hold the presidency and the only one of the original proposers to hold the post. In his inaugural address, delivered on 1 February, he alluded particularly to the changes which had then been introduced into steam navigation which allowed for a greater capacity and speeds. On 3 March 1836 he became a

fellow A fellow is a concept whose exact meaning depends on context. In learned or professional societies, it refers to a privileged member who is specially elected in recognition of their work and achievements. Within the context of higher education ...

of the

Royal Society The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, r ...

, and was also a member of the

Society of Arts The Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA), also known as the Royal Society of Arts, is a London-based organisation committed to finding practical solutions to social challenges. The RSA acronym is used m ...

. Field died at his residence, Balham Hill House, Surrey, on 11 August 1863, aged 76 and was interred at

West Norwood Cemetery West Norwood Cemetery is a rural cemetery in West Norwood in London, England. It was also known as the South Metropolitan Cemetery. One of the first private landscaped cemeteries in London, it is one of the " Magnificent Seven" cemeteries of ...

in a

Portland stone Portland stone is a limestone from the Tithonian stage of the Jurassic period quarried on the Isle of Portland, Dorset. The quarries are cut in beds of white-grey limestone separated by chert beds. It has been used extensively as a buildi ...

sarcophagus A sarcophagus (plural sarcophagi or sarcophaguses) is a box-like funeral receptacle for a corpse, most commonly carved in stone, and usually displayed above ground, though it may also be buried. The word ''sarcophagus'' comes from the Gre ...

Family

His daughter, Matilda Field, married Dr Thomas H. Gladstone. Their children included the embryologist,

Reginald John Gladstone Reginald John Gladstone FRSE FRCS LRCP MZS (1865–1947) was a British anatomist and embryologist. As he suffered from bilateral congenital cataracts his career was limited mainly to educational fields and research. He took a special interes ...

FRSE Fellowship of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (FRSE) is an award granted to individuals that the Royal Society of Edinburgh, Scotland's national academy of science and letters, judged to be "eminently distinguished in their subject". This so ...

(1865-1947). Reginald married his first cousin (i.e. also a grandchild of Field) Ida Millicant Field in 1912.

References

Notes

;Attribution {{DEFAULTSORT:Field, Joshua English civil engineers Fellows of the Royal Society Presidents of the Institution of Civil Engineers Presidents of the Smeatonian Society of Civil Engineers Burials at West Norwood Cemetery 1786 births 1863 deaths People from Hackney Central