Civil engineering can lay good claim to being one of the oldest professions in the world. Its roots can be traced back to four thousand years before the birth of Christ, in Ancient Egypt where people began to abandon nomadic existences and come together to live in cities. The Pyramids, built between 2700 and 2500 BC are arguably the first evidence of man's large-scale civil engineering ambitions.

Today, thousands of years later, engineers are still at the forefront of building the world's infrastructure, creating miracles of concrete and steel for future generations to wonder at as we do at the Pyramids today. What makes a great engineer? Qualities like vision, tenacity, drive and commitment. No wonder then that the Scots have produced some of the finest Civil Engineers the world has ever seen . . .

This year is the 250th anniversary of the birth of Thomas Telford, the first president of the Institute of Civil Engineers and arguably with the possible exception of Isambard Kingdom Brunel the greatest engineer who ever lived.

Telford was born in Westerkirk, Dumfriesshire in 1757 and, like so many great men of his era, he was born into extreme poverty. His father, a shepherd, died before he was born and he was raised by his mother. His education was cut short as he had to help supplement the family income by shepherding before, at the age of fourteen, he was apprenticed to become a stonemason in the Scottish Borders. One of Telford's first jobs was helping to build the stone bridge that spans the River Esk at Langholm. He did a good job the bridge still stands today, nearly two hundred and fifty years later!

After a short period in Edinburgh where he worked as a mason on the development of the New Town, Telford moved to London in 1782 where, at the age of twenty-five, he started work helping to build Somerset House the greatest construction project of the time.

It was here that Telford began to meet men who would be influential on his career; architects like Robert Adam and William Chambers and the man who would become his patron, the wealthy Member of Parliament for Shrewsbury Mr. William Pulteney.

Like everyone else who met the young Scottish stonemason the men were impressed by Telford's ability, his drive, and his desire to better himself. He caught up on his missed education and soon graduated from mason to engineer, leading up to Pulteney appointing him Surveyor of Public Works for Shropshire in 1787. Telford was just thirty.

Telford went to work, designing his first iron bridge in order to take the London-Holyhead road across the Severn at Montford. The Severn Suspension Bridge was described at the time as 'an engineering marvel' and was the structure that established Telford's reputation as an engineer. It was to be the first of forty bridges he was to build in the county of Shropshire alone, honing and refining his skills in the process until, shortly afterwards, he was appointed by the government to his greatest task yet a complete restructuring of Scotland's roads and waterways.

The project was a colossal undertaking that was to span twenty years and produce over a thousand miles of roads and some 120 new bridges, culminating in the construction of the Caledonian Canal which linked twenty freshwater lochs with over 20 miles of canals, many of which are still in use today.

Such was the great industry of the man that even while he was stamping his mark on every corner of Scotland he still found time to create monumental works elsewhere. Between 1801 and the early 1820's, while his works in Scotland were underway, Telford was also responsible for the Ellesmere Canal; an immense waterway linking the ironworks and collieries of Wrexham to Ellesmere and utilising along the way both the Chester Canal and the River Mersey. Among other endeavours this involved the building of the spectacular Pont Cysyllte Aqueduct across the River Dee. The structure which is over a thousand feet long and 121 feet high moved Sir Walter Scott to describe it as 'the greatest work of art I have ever seen' and has become an iconoclastic symbol of the industrial revolution. To stand beneath it today is still as inspiring as it must have been two centuries ago.

Outside of Britain during the same period Telford also travelled to Sweden where he designed and oversaw the construction of the Gotha Canal the 558 kilometre waterway that, to this day, links Gothenburg and Sweden.

This incredibly productive era culminated in 1826 with the crowning achievement of Telford's career: the Menai Suspension Bridge in Wales. Spanning 580 feet the longest span in the world at that time the bridge was a crucial link in the Holyhead road improvements and allowed Irish mail coaches to cross the Menai Straits, considerably reducing the sea crossing to Ireland. The deck and chains were replaced in 1940 but the rest of the structure remains Telford's original and it established the suspension bridge as the template for long span bridges right to this day.

Telford died in 1834 and was buried in Westminster Abbey. In an era of incredible productivity and feats of engineering this Scotsman born into poverty in a tiny lowland village was perhaps the most productive engineer the world had ever known. Today, a quarter of a millennium after his birth, hundreds of his roads and bridges are still used every day, making sure Telford continues to deserve the punning nickname bestowed on him by his friend the poet Robert Southey 'The Colossus of Roads'.

This October Telford's life and work is celebrated in Edinburgh, where an exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery will highlight many of his masterly works, including the Caledonian Canal, the Menai Suspension Bridge and the Gotha Canal.

And Scotland is still producing the Telfords of the future: many of the UK's best Civil Engineering courses being taught at universities across the country, with Dundee University's Civil Engineering course recently being named number three in the UK in The Times league table. The university is also renowned as a top research facility and has a 100 per cent record for graduate employment prospects.

Indeed the Institute of Civil Engineers the industry's lead body since 1818, which once had Thomas Telford as its president gave its 2006 Civil Engineering Award to Edinburgh Airport Traffic Control Tower: proof, were it needed, that 250 years after the birth of Thomas Telford Scotland is still very much at the forefront of world class Civil Engineering.