Millwright

A millwright is a craftsman or tradesman who installs, dismantles, repairs, reassembles, and moves machinery in factories, power plants, and construction sites.

As the name suggests, the original function of a millwright was the construction of flour mills, sawmills, paper mills and fulling mills powered by water or wind, mostly of wood with a limited number of metal parts. Since both of these structures originated from antiquity, millwrighting could be considered, arguably, as one of the oldest engineering trades and the forerunner of the modern mechanical engineer.