Newcomen
Name: Thomas Newcomen
Achievements: Early steam engine
Born: Christened February 24, 1663; Dartmouth, Devon, England
Died: 24th February 24, 1729; Southwark, London (Aged 66)
Field & Discipline: Engineering; Steam Engine
Language: English
Father: Elias
Mother: Sarah Newcomen.
Siblings: John
Spouse: Hannah Waymouth
Children: Elias; Hannah; Thomas
Education: Privately tutored
Major Work:
Newcomen steam pump
Life & Times:
Not much is known of Newcomen’s early life, but it seems more than likely that he was apprenticed to an ironmonger in Exeter, in Devon, before moving back to Dartmouth around 1685. According to records he was running his own iron-goods business by 1688.
By the end of the century, he was operating a successful local business and, in 1798 and 1799, bought nearly twenty-five tons of iron from the local ironmasters. He also worked in brass, copper, tin and lead and his trade extended as far north as the English Midlands.
Newcomen often visited the tin mines of Cornwall to sell tools to the miners, and during these visits, he saw at first hand their serious drainage problems, especially in those mines that went out under the sea..
Early in the 1700’s, he set about designing a steam-powered drainage pump, not knowing that [parallel work with] Savery* had already developed a similar machine. Savery realised that Newcomen’s engine breached his patent and Newcomen was forced to work with Savery in the exploitation of the invention.
In 1705, an agreement over patent-sharing was reached and the two machines, used for completely different commercial markets, meant that Newcomen and Savery had a monopoly. When Savery died twelve years later, a syndicate took over his patent.
The first operational Newcomen pump was set up at Dudley, Worcestershire in 1712.
Newcomen kept very few records of his early experiments with the pump, but it seems he had difficulty in achieving rapid condensation of the steam.
The engine consisted of a brass cylinder connected to a boiler that produced steam at low pressure. One end of the rod of an airtight piston in the cylinder was connected to one end of a great pivoted beam placed above the cylinder. At the other end of the beam were the pump rods.
The steam entered the cylinder and pushed up the piston. The steam was then condensed by the injection of cold water, a partial vacuum formed inside the cylinder, and external air pressure pushed the piston down again. Linkage with the moving beam operated valves to make the process self-acting. The pump became known as the [developed] steam engine*.
Newcomen hired out his services as drainage engineer and installed a second machine at a coalmine in Griff, near Nuneaton, Warwickshire, in 1714. The pump was a great success and, soon after, other pumps were installed in mines in Hawarden and Whitehaven. Then, in 1717, the year Savery died, Newcomen set up a pump at Moor Hall, in Austhorpe, Leeds. This was the first machine to use an iron cylinder. After 1720, engines were installed in coalfields in the north of England and in the tin mines of Cornwall.
Around the same time, foreign mines were becoming interested in using the steam pump and English engineers demonstrated Newcomen’s machine in Vienna and Liege. Pits at Germany and the present Czech Republic took up the pump, and in Sweden the first pump was installed in 1727 at the Dannemora mine.
In the early 1800’s the Newcomen pump was modified and improved by [invention improved by] Watt*.
Extra Connections: His work related to that of [work related to] Hargreaves*, [work related to] George Stephenson*, [work related to] Brindley*, [work related to] Papin* and [work related to] Kay*
His engine was claimed as inferior to that of [engine claimed inferior to that of] Desaguliers*
Newcomen's engine was gradually replaced after 1775 in areas where coal was expensive (especially in Cornwall) by an improved design, invented by James Watt, in which the steam was condensed in a separate condenser. The Watt steam engine, aided by better engineering techniques including Wilkinson's boring machine, was much more fuel efficient, enabling Watt and his partner Matthew Boulton to collect substantial royalties based on the fuel saved....
Despite Watt's improvements, Common Engines (as they were then known) remained in use for a considerable time, and many more Newcomen engines than Watt ones were built even during the period of Watt's patent (up to 1800), as they were cheaper and less complicated. Of over 2,200 engines built in the 18th century, only about 450 were Watt engines. Elements of Watt's design, especially the Separate Condenser, were incorporated in many "pirate" engines. Even after 1800 Newcomen type engines continued to be built and condensers were added routinely to these. They were also commonly retro-fitted to existing Newcomen engines (the so-called "pickle-pot" condenser).
There are examples of Newcomen engines in the Science Museum, London, England and the Ford Museum, Dearborn, Michigan US, amongst other places.[6]
Assessment: Newcomen’s engine was a uniquely successful marriage between science and practical engineering.
Oneliner: Thomas Newcomen, early steam engine inventor
Bibliography:
- L T C Rolt & J S Allen, The Steam Engine of Thomas Newcomen, Landmark Publishing, Ashbourne, 1997.