‘The very term mensuration sounds engineer-like’: measurement and engineering authority in nineteenth-century river management

Dishington, Rachel

Abstract

Measurement was vital to nineteenth-century engineering. Focusing on the work of the Stevenson engineering firm in Scotland, this paper explores the processes by which engineers made their measurements credible and explains how measurement, as both a product and a practice, informed engineering decisions and supported claims to engineering authority. By examining attempts made to quantify, measure and map dynamic river spaces, the paper analyses the relationship between engineering experience and judgement and the generation of data that engineers considered to be 'tolerably correct'. While measurement created an abstract and simplified version of the river that accommodated prediction, this abstraction had to be connected to and made meaningful in real river space despite acknowledged limitations to measuring practice. In response, engineers drew on experience gained through the measuring process to support claims to authoritative knowledge. This combination of quantification and experience was then used to support interventions in debates over the proper use and management of rivers. This paper argues that measurement in nineteenth-century engineering served a dual function, producing both data and expertise, which were both significant in underpinning engineering authority and facilitating engineers' intervention in decision making for river management.

Citation

Dishington, R. (2024). ‘The very term mensuration sounds engineer-like’: measurement and engineering authority in nineteenth-century river management. British Journal for the History of Science, 57(1), 21-41. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0007087423000948

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Nov 28, 2023
• Online Publication Date: Jan 8, 2024
• Publication Date: 2024-03
• Deposit Date: Dec 13, 2023
• Publicly Available Date: Dec 13, 2023
• Journal: British Journal for the History of Science
• Print ISSN: 0007-0874
• Electronic ISSN: 1474-001X
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 57
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 21-41
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/s0007087423000948
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/28427145
• Publisher URL: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/british-journal-for-the-history-of-science/article/very-term-mensuration-sounds-engineerlike-measurement-and-engineering-authority-in-nineteenthcentury-river-management/3E96E060014B10F4D73B61234406F961
• Additional Information: Copyright: Copyright © The Author(s), 2024. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of British Society for the History of Science; License: This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.; Free to read: This content has been made available to all.