This year marks the 300th anniversary of the first known working Newcomen steam engine. Little is known about Thomas Newcomen’s origins. He was born in Dartmouth, Devon, probably a few days before 24 February 1664, when he was christened. His father, Elias Newcomen, was a freeholder, shipowner and merchant. Thomas may have been taught as a boy by the non-conformist scholar John Flavell, who was brought to Dartmouth in 1656 by a group that included Thomas’s father.
Tradition has it that Newcomen was apprenticed to an ironmonger in Exeter, although this has not been supported by documentary evidence. He certainly set up as an ironmonger in Dartmouth by 1688, when he is listed in the accounts of the Dartmouth Borough Received as supplying small items such as locks.
At this date, “ironmonger” meant more than just a supplier of metal goods. Newcomen would have been a skilled craftsman, probably more what we would now think of as a blacksmith. He would have made many trade visits to local mines, and would have been aware of the drainage problems they had.
Drainage was one of the most pressing issues of the times. Deposits of minerals close to the surface had become exhausted, and as mines had to become deeper and deeper they ran into subterranean water. The use of pumps to drain water from mines was not a new one, and horse-powered engines had been used for this purpose, but the cost of pumping by horse was high.
Another Devonian, Thomas Savery, had developed a steam engine that worked to a point, but it could raise water only to a height of around 8 metres. Savery proposed getting around this limitation by using a series of engines installed on shelves at intervals down the mineshaft, but this was not really a practical solution.
Newcomen had a partner, John Calley, who was a plumber and glazier, and together they worked to develop an engine that would use the power of steam to address the pressing issue of mine drainage. There is debate about how the engine was developed. There were many, particularly during the 18th century, who could not believe that a comparatively low-born and uneducated ironmonger could be capable of developing the steam engine, when many others with more advantageous backgrounds had failed.
In the 1797 edition of Encyclopaedia Britannica, Dr John Robison claimed that he had uncovered evidence in the papers of the Royal Society that Dr Robert Hooke had been in communication with Newcomen, and had suggested that he investigate the work of Denis Papin. Papin had developed a model that demonstrated the principle of steam power, but he had never put his ideas into practice.
Subsequent research in the Royal Society archives, using the same material that Robison would have had access to, has failed to corroborate this story.
It has also been proposed that Newcomen may have seen one of Savery’s machines installed in a local mine, and that his engine was a development of that. But Newcomen’s engine was significantly different from Savery’s, and cannot be said to be a mere development of this idea. Savery’s engine had no moving parts, while Newcomen was the first to put the combination of boiler, cylinder and moving piston together.
Unfortunately for Newcomen, Savery had taken out a patent on his steam pump that was wide in scope. So, despite the fundamental differences between their engines, Newcomen risked infringing Savery’s patent. The two men were forced into a partnership, with Newcomen paying Savery a licence to build engines.
When Savery died in 1715 a syndicate was formed, known as the Proprietors of the Invention for Raising Water by Fire. This group acquired his rights, which were not due to lapse until 1733.
The first Newcomen engine that we have firm evidence for was erected in 1712 at Tipton, near Dudley Castle, Staffordshire. It was used for pumping water out of the coal mine there. A working replica of this engine was erected at the Black Country Living Museum in 1986.
During Newcomen’s lifetime more than 100 of his engines were erected around the country and abroad, mainly for pumping water from mines, particularly collieries. Newcomen engines were also used for other purposes, including municipal water supplies, and to indirectly power machinery by returning water from a water wheel to the reservoir above.