Smeaton Lecture 2022 – Who designed the Clifton Suspension Bridge

Ed McCann

Ed is an experienced project director and is the Immediate Past President of the Institution of Civil Engineers. He was fundamental in growing Expedition from a startup to Building Magazine’s Engineering Consultant of the Year in 2012. As a senior director at Expedition, Ed provides invaluable leadership and experience to our organisation.

He is technical, an excellent communicator, enthusiastic, and has a deep understanding of the construction process. He is particularly skilled in strategic consultancy, feasibility studies, and design.

Ed’s career has taken him to lead projects all over the world. He was the project director for the multi award-winning Infinity Bridge and the Olympic 2012 Velodrome. Environmental factors and efficiency are drivers for Ed’s current projects that see him work with infrastructure clients to improve processes and implement new technologies. Projects include creating and delivering a productivity workstream for HS2, designing the Rolls-Royce SMR Program Site Factory for BAM Nuttall, and helping develop the Berkeley Homes modular housing system.

Ed is a founder trustee and trustee board member, former chair of the USL Board.

He is passionate about developing talent in the industry with quality training and education, a passion that led him to become the co-creator of the Constructionarium. This non profit organisation delivers education and training to students and professionals across the built environment sector. He is also co-founder of the Get It Right Initiative which aims to reduce errors in the industry.

As a respected thought leader, Ed is often invited to speak at various events, write articles, and deliver lectures, and has also made television programmes on civil engineering.

Sir John Armitt

Sir John Armitt is the Chair of the National Infrastructure Commission. He is also Chairman of National Express and serves on the Boards of the Berkeley Group and Expo 2020.

In September 2013, Sir John published an independent review on long-term infrastructure planning in the UK. The recommendations in the Armitt Review received widespread support and resulted in the creation of the National Infrastructure Commission in 2015.

After leaving John Laing plc in 1993, where Sir John had been Chairman of Laing’s International and Civil Engineering divisions, he became Chief Executive of Union Railways. In 1997 he became Chief Executive of Costain, a position he held until 2001, when he became Chief Executive of Railtrack (later Network Rail) until 2007. Sir John was also a former President of the ICE.

Julia Elton FSA

Julia Elton FSA has spent a lifetime working with rare books and manuscripts relating to the history of engineering. She contributed a chapter to ‘Robert Stephenson: the eminent engineer’ (edited by Michael Bailey) and wrote a number of entries on lighthouse and gas engineers for volumes 2 & 3 of the Institution of Civil Engineers’ Biographical Dictionary.

Julia also prepared the catalogue of the Noble Collection of Brunel papers, housed at the Brunel Institute in Bristol, which laid the foundations for her knowledge of this remarkable, if sometimes controversial, engineer.

Julia is a Past President of the Newcomen Society (the first woman to hold this position) and wrote her presidential address on the development of the Fresnel refracting lighthouse lens. She is a long-standing member of the I.Struct.E. History Study Group and an honorary member of the Smeatonian Society of Civil Engineers.