Thomas Newcomen (1664–1729) and the first recorded steam engine

Abstract

Some 300 years ago in the UK there was a growing need for mine pumping beyond the power available from wind, water and animals. Steady development in the scientific study of such things as steam showed the way ahead and, sometime after 1700, Thomas Newcomen made the breakthrough in developing a viable steam engine. Through the Baptist network, Newcomen, who was a Dartmouth businessman, installed an engine to drain a mine in Dudley in the West Midlands and this was widely reported. Over the next 20 years, a further 100 engines were built, including 11 on the continent. Despite being extremely inefficient, the engine prospered where steam pumping of water was vital to industrial development, before John Smeaton and James Watt turned their scientific minds to improving the efficiency, initially doubling and trebling the earlier performance. While these engineers had a truly wonderful intuitive understanding of steam and vacuum, it was many years before thermodynamics evolved to explain the reasons for their success. This paper traces the development of steam engines from 1712 towards 1800 and allows a better appreciation of the achievements of engineers in that period and how they laid the foundations for steam engines to power the Industrial Revolution.