James Jardine (engineer)
Scottish engineer
James Jardine (13 November 1776–20 June 1858) was a Scottish civil engineer, mathematician and geologist. He was the first person to determine mean sea level. He built tunnels and bridges, including for the Innocent Railway, and built reservoirs including Glencorse, Threipmuir, Harlaw for Edinburgh Water Company, and Cobbinshaw for the Union Canal.
Life
Jardine was born in Applegarth, Dumfriesshire, on 30 November 1776, the son of a farmer. He was educated at Dumfries Academy and the University of Edinburgh. He studied mathematics under Prof John Playfair. He was a friend of Thomas Telford and they collaborated on several projects
Following survey work at the Firth of Tay, he was the first person in the world to calculate mean sea level. From 1796 to 1808 he lectured in mathematics at the University of Edinburgh.
From 1811 he began a series of harbour designs, beginning with Saltcoats. This was followed by Perth (1831), major extensions to Leith Docks (1835), and Eyemouth (1837).
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “James Jardine (engineer)” as scottish engineer. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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The subject matters to the people & ideas register because the source frames it as scottish engineer. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 5, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q6136814. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1776, 1858, 1796 and 1808.
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This entry incorporates text from “James Jardine (engineer)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.