Wikipedia's own civil engineering article calls Smeaton "the first self-proclaimed civil engineer" (1771, Eddystone Lighthouse) while the same article calls the discipline "the second-oldest engineering discipline after military engineering," reaching back to Egyptian, Mesopotamian, Greek and Roman construction with no professional title attached. Historians differ on whether "civil engineering" names a practice (ancient) or a profession (18th century onward).
What would resolve this A settled historiographical convention on whether "engineering" disciplines are dated from their professional/institutional founding or from the earliest practice they describe; no such family-wide convention exists yet.
OpenWikipedia contributors, Civil Engineering (Wikipedia)