An engine powered by steam that contributed to the Industrial Revolution as well as a transportation revolution.
Thomas Newcomen conceived of, experimented on, and built the first working steam engine. His idea of moving a piston inside a cylinder by atmospheric pressure by the partial vacuum of steam condensing was the first of its kind. The vacuum created was an important innovation. Though he worked on it for ten years, he could not get a patent for it. Thomas Savery had previously received a patent for each engine based on fire. This restricted Newcomen’s chances to market his engine, so he formed a partnership with Savery.
Both the Savery and Newcomen engines were being used in coal mines to remove excess water. By 1725, the Newcomen engine was also used to deliver water to mills for use on their wheels. Though a great advance, Newcomen’s engine was still inefficient. Each injection of water chilled the cylinder. The remaining steam was consumed in reheating the cylinder for the next stroke.
In 1757, James Watt became an instrument maker for the University of Glasgow. While there, he became interested in steam engines. Watt repaired the university’s model of Newcomen’s engine. After studying it carefully, he realized that the Newcomen engine model used too much steam. In fact, it used more than it generated, thus making it inefficient.
Watt made an improvement that increased the efficiency of the machine. He added a second cylinder to allow the main cylinder to run at higher temperatures without cooling off. This was the main problem with Newcomen’s engine: the water injected into just the one cylinder to condense the steam also cooled the cylinder at the same time.
Arguably the most important invention of the early Industrial Revolution, the steam engine—including this one from 1801, the first manufactured in the United States—dramatically changed the method and pace of manufacturing and transportation. (Library of Congress)
By 1769, Watt sought and obtained a patent for his engine. He gained support for developing his engine from Matthew Boulton, a major manufacturer in Birmingham, England. In 1776, Watt built an engine with a precise cylinder to pump water at Bloomfield Colliery. This precision was made possible by the invention of a new type of lathe that allowed fine metalworking. The Wilkinson ironworks manufactured the lathe.
The Watt steam engine was one of those revolutionary inventions of the eighteenth century that changed the course of transportation as well as manufacturing forever. After its inception, steamships began plying the oceans, the railroad was invented shortly thereafter, and factories became mechanized with steam power instead of waterpower. It was the driving force of the Industrial Revolution.
Peter E. Carr
See also: Industrial Revolution.
Hills, Richard L. Power from Steam: A History of the Stationary Steam Engine. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989.