Newcomen steam engine

The early history of the steam engine is dominated by James Watt's invention of the separate condenser in 1765. Unfortunately, this achievement has overshadowed the no less significant improvements made around the same period by fellow engineer John Smeaton, during a series of trials on a prototype steam engine he built at his home near Leeds, UK. This chapter will give an account of Smeaton's trials and the improvements he made, as well as exploring in more detail the methods he used. Since his youth, Smeaton had been perfecting ways of improving scientific instruments, experimental apparatuses and works of engineering. The steam engine trials showcase this approach at its most mature, when Smeaton was at the pinnacle of his career. I argue that Smeaton played a key role in the transformation of engineering from a tradition-based practice that used ad hoc trial-and-error to solve problems, into a methodologically systematic activity based on a universally applicable problem-solving approach based on parameter variation, that tests hypotheses, improves optimization and provides general rules for the functioning of machines.

Powszechnie przypisuje się wynalazek maszyny parowej Jamesowi Wattowi, co więcej - uważa się, że właśnie on swoim wynalazkiem zapoczątkował pierwszą rewolucję przemysłową. Tymczasem prawda jest bardziej złożona. Przed stworzeniem przez Watta jego maszyny było kilku twórców urządzeń wcześniejszych, tylko mniej doskonałych. Maszyna udoskonalona przez Watta miała o wiele lepszą sprawność, a ponadto Watt znalazł bogatych sponsorów, którzy  pomogli uruchomić produkcję maszyn według koncepcji Watta.

Dartmoor's most important tin mine. The field evidence is spread over a large area and is generally well preserved, with examples of most types of remains to be expected from this period. The mine is moderately well documented, with many known references that may be correlated with evidence surviving in the field. In 1999 an earthwork survey of the mine was undertaken by English Heritage, Exeter, and a plan of the whole site was produced together with `windows' at a larger scale. The survey has greatly enhanced the record of this mine and when analysed in the light of the documentation has provided a much improved chronological framework and a greater understanding of the remains.

Ending and leaving unhappy marriages in Georgian Cornwall Church records tell us much about marriage in Georgian Cornwall. Most people married, and many who were widowed married more than once. Within the law at the time, some individuals married when they were younger than our age of consent. Most children were born to a married woman. Single women from all social backgrounds christened any children born to them outside of marriage, often giving the father's surname as the child's middle name. As the cartoon shows, pregnant single women who came to the attention of parish officials sometimes had reason to name a married man as the father of their unborn child. "What will poor dear Mrs Doodle say?" asks her husband. Churchwardens were expected to refer cases of adultery to the church courts. Nonetheless, many individual parishes accumulated more 'bastardy bonds' than the total number of adultery cases heard by the church courts in Cornwall. Allegations of adultery heard Copyright © Charlotte MacKenzie 2023 2 by the church courts were rarely accompanied by applications from spouses to legally separate in the marriage or marriages included in the case. Parish 'bastardy bonds' named men from a wide range of social backgrounds. And that was not only because surety was generally provided by a relation or friend, whose financial circumstances enabled them to act as a guarantor, and vouch for the man who had been named as the father. Putative fathers were obliged to accept their future responsibilities towards the unborn children of women drawn from the working poor. It was a practical system which operated without moral judgement or sanctions, to avoid adding the costs of another child to the parish poor list. For whatever reason, some individuals chose not to marry. The younger Richard Branwell, a cousin of the mother of the Brontës, remained single. He was named as the putative father, on at least two occasions, by single women who were

A 'new and strange Conversation': Cornwall's eighteenth century connections with the African diaspora and the politics of abolition and reform Visual culture holds many clues about Cornwall's past. A painting of three men, three women, and a boy outside Carnanton house is a conversation piece which inspires curiosity about the eighteenth century occupants of the mansion and their social circles. Three of the adults are sociably united by their participation in angling, three by drawing and conversation at the table; the boy dressed as a servant is set apart in a foreground corner. An angling party was bequeathed to the National Trust in 1976 as part of the Wimpole estate in Cambridgeshire. The painting is inscribed on the reverse side as designed and painted by Ed Smith at Fowey in Cornwall in 1773. It is possible to identify historical individuals represented in the painting with the exception of the boy. Exploring the context of Carnanton at that time reveals a fresh perspective on Cornwall's cultural, commercial, and political interrelationships ; this article looks first at the African diaspora in eighteenth century Cornwall. 1 Eighteenth century Cornwall was characterised by population growth, internal migration to mining districts, and some inward migration including the transient populations and itinerants associated with British maritime communities. The burials of many individual transients, itinerants, mariners, and bodies washed ashore were recorded at Cornish churches including some whose names were unknown. During the Seven Years' War 220 Acadians displaced from Nova Scotia by British troops arrived at Falmouth from Virginia onboard the Fanny on 17 June 1756. They were initially lodged in a barn near Penryn; 67 Acadians died between July and December 1756 and were buried at St Gluvias. The Acadians were French speaking, Catholic, and 'neutral'. By the end of the war the Acadians were living alongside Cornish families in what were described by a French visitor as 'maisons bourgeoises' some by then apprenticed or employed, still without a 2 Catholic priest; 159 Acadians left Cornwall on 26 May 1763 sailing on La Fauvette from Falmouth to Morlaix in France, a few may have chosen to remain. 2 Jewish migrants arriving in Cornwall from Europe included some who worked initially as packmen before establishing faith communities with synagogues and cemetries in several Cornish towns. 3 Merchants in Cornwall conducted frequent trade with southern European ports including Lisbon to which the Falmouth packets made regular return voyages to import gold bullion from mines worked partly by enslaved Africans in European colonies of south America. The Cornish tin and copper trade and mining requirements generated regular sailings between Cornwall and London, Bristol, and south Wales; and there was other coastal trade with British ports including transportation of salt for Cornwall's fish processing industry. There was transatlantic trade from Cornish ports. The packet service for the West Indies initially sailed from Falmouth before being moved to Plymouth. Slave trade ship captains sometimes called at Falmouth before sailing to Africa or ended their return transatlantic voyage there; the Royal African Company and some independent transatlantic slave traders retained agents at Falmouth. 4 Cornwall and the African diaspora The probate of Thomas Corker showed that four slave trade transactions were completed at Falmouth in 1700; it is possible that there were others. 5 From the time that parish records started in Cornwall there were occasional entries for 'black' servants or 'blackamoors'. In the eighteenth century these entries became more frequent, as shown in the Appendix here, which is broadly divided between those who can be identified as maritime burials or mariners, and the greater number who lived in Cornwall including more than one generation of some families. These records provide an underestimate of the African diaspora in Cornwall. Not everyone had any occasion or opportunity to attend

Steam pumping stations are exceptional buildings, a rousing, eloquent
architecture designed by engineers, and an industrial edifice intended to
express civic pride. They were invented, perfected and superseded in
barely a century during the determined struggle to overcome the historic
threat to urban life posed by industrialization. Of the buildings of the
industrial period only train stations can compete with waterworks for
stylistic bravura, carried over into the cool, tiled interiors and the sparkle
and warmth of the cherished steam engine.
This first comprehensive account of a remarkable fusion of machinery and
structure weaves together architectural fashions, shifting social
conditions and engineering inventiveness to show why such care was
taken by the communities that commissioned them and by the men who
built them, and what makes us take such pleasure in them today.

Elsecar is an important industrial area, once the powerhouse of the Fitzwilliam dynasty of industrialists. Much of historic interest survives, including extensive remains of its famous ironworks, mid nineteenth century workshops and the unique Newcomen Beam Engine plus its mine-shaft. After decades of National Coal Board (NCB) ownership and an uncertain future, the site was taken over in 1988 by Barnsley Metropolitan Council, who started an ambitious programme of development at the Elsecar Heritage Centre. In 2009 focus turned to the conservation of the engine and funding was obtained from the Heritage Lottery Fund, English Heritage and the Council to carry out the work, that culminated in an official opening in November 2014. Although much modified over its working life, this engine is the only atmospheric beam engine in the world that remains virtually complete on its original site and over its mine-shaft. It is therefore of international importance, recognized by its Scheduled Monument status. Conservation of the site required adoption of the highest standards. This paper describes the extensive preliminary surveys, including underwater investigation of the flooded mine-shaft, the ethical dilemmas of conservation, and the challenges of interpreting a unique historic site for visitors, especially the difficulty of providing access to a cramped three-storey industrial building. The engine house and environs were restored and reinterpreted in 2009-2014. On a project of international importance high ideals were adopted but some deep mysteries remain.

Comparison of the only known account of the invention of cold water injection to activate an atmospheric engine with contemporary texts on experimental methodology reveals that Newcomen and Calley’s inventive process corresponds with the design of experiments prescribed by Robert Hooke for the Royal Society. Consequently, when an unexpected outcome occurred, they were able to make full application of the findings. Differences between the steam piston experiments of Newcomen and Denis Papin are explored, suggesting that the inventors may have been working in parallel.

The first successful commercial application of steam power technology was pumping water out of tin mines in Cornwall. A number of factors created a window of opportunity for an experience curve which allowed the innovators to improve the reliability and cost-effectiveness of their disruptive invention while enjoying positive cashflow on the application of each engine. The inventors, Thomas Newcomen and John Calley of Dartmouth were able to gain the trust of mine adventurers through Newcomen’s prior family, social and economic relationships with Cornwall.
This paper assesses the available textual evidence for the location and timing of each pre-1712 engine for which records are preserved. An overall timeline for the technical maturity and commercialisation application of the atmospheric engine is proposed. This development coincided with a short period of lower tax on shipped coal following which the inventors were forced to focus on draining coal works instead of tin mines. Cornwall’s unique context of sharing the risks and rewards of mining ventures shaped Newcomen’s initial business model as a build-operate-own-transfer contractor; this factor in turn facilitated the initial rapid spread of the technology subsequent to its public launch at Dudley in 1712.

This paper was written in order to examine the conditions needed, and the order of the discoveries made, for the invention of the steam engine. There were a number of conditions necessary for the invention of the steam engine. A vital one was the presence of a need, initially that of how to get water out of mines and later how to drive the new machinery that was being produced as part of the industrial revolution. But needs are common and they are not always met. The reasons why those needs were met was due to the scientific progress that was going on in 16th and 17th century Europe concerning the knowledge of atmospheric pressure, how to create vacuums and of the properties of gases. Allied to this scientific progress was a belief in Europe at the time that progress could be made and problems could be solved. The inventors at the time applied scientific knowledge to solving the problems that existed and after long periods of trial and error, including the development of new and better materials, were able to produce a working steam engine. Crucial to the progress made by the inventors was the diffusion of scientific and engineering knowledge which enabled them to build on each other’s work. The earlier development of printing was important to the diffusion process and the role of organizations such as the Royal Society was also important.

Like the celebrated lady of Egyptian science, Hypatia of Alexandria, Elizabeth Carne's scientific accomplishments were diverse, widely regarded and admired in her own time (1817-1873), but lost to ours. In the established intellectual network of her notable father's contemporaries, and seemingly in following his scientific bent, her personal spurs can be found, not only in the geological sciences, but perhaps more importantly in her social analyses, her philanthropic efforts, her spiritual convictions and political-ecological philosophy. Elizabeth's writings bring forward that model of 'zeal for moral and intellectual improvement' that Humphry Davy highlights in his descriptions of Hypatia [3 rd Geological Lecture, 1805]. Touring St Michael's Mount with Joseph Carne (1782-1858) and his 15-year old daughter Elizabeth, John Stuart Mill found her 'highly pleasing, and a little surprising, to find in this remote district…'[1832, Walking tour], and an even more remarkable person than her father. At Joseph's death she inherited his mineral collection and also took on the management of the Penzance bank of Batten, Carne & Carne which her grandfather, John Wesley's friend William Carne, had established in 1795. Geology, mineralogy, botany and not least conchology received her close attention and became subjects for her busy pen and drawings. Noted as a close observer with powerful reasoning abilities, she was said to have given 'considerable attention to mathematics, studied the classics...and acquired several modern languages.' Consciously Christian (though broad and catholic in sympathy), her social concerns, like those of her family before her, were devoted to the 'enlightenment' of the impoverished, the sick, and the uneducated. Her philanthropy, like her writings, was often hidden -due to her intense dislike of publicity -but allowed for a breadth and depth of interests cementing arts to sciences, to the clarification and benefit of both. Our knowledge of Carne, like that of many women of science, has been submerged, but in her particular case with some reason: most of her work in political economy and socio-religious ethics was rendered anonymously, or under a male pseudonym, and has been difficult to uncover and obtain. To find it again, and to review its messages, speaks to contemporary issues of human ecology, and the on-going divide between privileges and opportunities in rural and urban economies.