Thomas Newcomen ( / ˈ nj uː k ʌ m ə n / ; February 1664 – 5 August 1729) was an English inventor who developed the atmospheric engine in 1712. He also worked as a Baptist preacher and an ironmonger.
He was born in Dartmouth, Devon, England, to a family of merchants. He was baptized at St. Saviour's Church on 28 February 1664. During his time, flooding in coal and tin mines was a serious problem. Newcomen worked to find better ways to remove water from these mines. His ironmonger business focused on designing, making, and selling tools used in the mining industry.
Religious life
Thomas Newcomen worked as a lay preacher and a teaching elder in the local Baptist church. After the year 1710, he became the pastor of a Baptist group in his area. His father was part of a group that brought the famous Puritan minister John Flavel to Dartmouth. Later, one of Newcomen’s business partners in London, Edward Wallin, was also a Baptist minister who knew the well-known Doctor John Gill from Horsleydown, Southwark. Newcomen’s relationship with the Baptist church in Bromsgrove helped promote his steam engine, as the engineers Jonathan Hornblower Sr. and his son were also members of the same church.
Developing the atmospheric engine
Newcomen's major accomplishment was inventing a steam engine around 1712. He combined ideas from Thomas Savery and Denis Papin to create a machine designed to remove water from a tin mine. It is likely that Newcomen knew Savery, whose family members were merchants in south Devon. Savery also worked with the Commissioners for Sick and Hurt Seamen, which brought him to Dartmouth. Savery created a "fire engine," a type of pump that used steam to create a vacuum. This vacuum pulled water from the bottom of a mine. However, the "fire engine" was not very effective and could only lift water from mines up to about thirty feet deep.
Newcomen improved the design by replacing the container where steam was condensed with a cylinder containing a piston based on Papin's ideas. Instead of using the vacuum to pull water, the vacuum caused the piston to move downward. This movement powered a beam engine, which included a large wooden beam that pivoted on a central support. On the opposite side of the beam was a chain connected to a pump at the mine's base. When the steam cylinder was refilled with steam to prepare for the next cycle, water was drawn into the pump and pushed upward by the weight of the machinery. Newcomen and his partner, John Calley, built the first successful engine of this type at the Conygree Coalworks in Tipton, West Midlands. A working model of this engine is displayed at the nearby Black Country Living Museum.
Later life and death
Little is known about Thomas Newcomen's life after 1715. At that time, the business of building and operating steam engines was managed by a group called the "Proprietors of the Invention for Raising Water by Fire." John Meres, who worked as a clerk for the Society of Apothecaries in London, served as the group's secretary and treasurer. The Society of Apothecaries had an exclusive right to supply medicines to the British Navy, which connected them to Savery, a man whose will John Meres helped record. The Proprietors' Committee also included Edward Wallin, a Baptist minister of Swedish heritage who led a church in Maze Pond, Southwark. Thomas Newcomen died at Wallin's home in 1729 and was buried at Bunhill Fields, a cemetery near London. His exact burial location is not known.
By 1733, about 125 Newcomen steam engines, built under Savery's patent (which was legally extended until 1733), had been installed in many important mining areas across Britain and Europe. These engines helped drain water from coal mines in the Black Country, Warwickshire, and near Newcastle upon Tyne; from tin and copper mines in Cornwall; and from lead mines in Flintshire and Derbyshire, among other locations.
After Newcomen
The Newcomen engine remained largely unchanged for about 75 years, spreading slowly to more places in the UK and mainland Europe. At first, brass cylinders were used, but these were costly and limited in size. In the 1720s, the Coalbrookdale Company developed new iron casting methods that allowed larger cylinders, up to about 6 feet (1.8 m) in diameter, by the 1760s. Experience improved the engine’s construction and layout. John Smeaton made significant mechanical improvements in the early 1770s, building many large engines of this type. His changes were quickly adopted. By 1775, about 600 Newcomen engines had been built, though many had already worn out and were abandoned or replaced.
The Newcomen engine was not very efficient, but its complexity matched the engineering and material limits of the early 18th century. Much heat was lost when steam was cooled in the cylinder. This was less of a problem in collieries, where unusable small coal (slack) was available, but it raised mining costs in places like Cornwall, where coal was scarce. After 1775, Newcomen engines were gradually replaced in areas with expensive coal, such as Cornwall, by a more efficient design invented by James Watt. Watt’s engine used a separate condenser to cool steam, reducing fuel use. Better engineering tools, like Wilkinson’s boring machine, helped make Watt’s engines more efficient. This allowed Watt and his partner, Matthew Boulton, to earn significant royalties from fuel savings.
Watt later improved his design with a double-acting engine, where both the up and down strokes provided power. These engines were especially useful for textile mills, and many were used in these industries. Early attempts to use Newcomen engines for machinery had mixed results because their single power stroke caused uneven motion. However, flywheels and better engineering helped solve this issue. By 1800, hundreds of non-Watt rotary engines were built, mainly in collieries, ironworks, and textile mills.
Despite Watt’s improvements, Newcomen engines (called Common Engines at the time) remained in use for many years. Even during Watt’s patent period (until 1800), more Newcomen engines were built than Watt engines because they were cheaper and simpler. Of over 2,200 engines built in the 18th century, only about 450 were Watt engines. Features of Watt’s design, especially the separate condenser, were used in many "pirate" engines. After 1800, Newcomen-type engines continued to be built, and condensers were added to them. These condensers were also often added to existing Newcomen engines, a process called "pickle-pot" condensing.
Surviving Newcomen engines
Examples of Newcomen engines can be found in the Science Museum in London, England, and the Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan, United States, as well as other locations.
In 1964, the Newcomen Society of London moved a Newcomen engine from Hawkesbury Junction, Warwickshire, to Dartmouth, where it is now displayed working with a water-powered system instead of a steam boiler. Dr. Cyril Boucher of the Newcomen Society says this engine, called the Newcomen Memorial Engine, was built around 1725, and later had new parts added.
The last Newcomen-style engine still used commercially and remaining on its original site is at the Elsecar Heritage Centre near Barnsley in South Yorkshire. It was restored to working condition between 2012 and 2015. The restored engine was unveiled by Prince Edward, Earl of Wessex, in May 2016. Another working Newcomen engine is a modern replica at the Black Country Museum in Dudley, West Midlands. The Newcomen Memorial Engine at Dartmouth, Devon, is also displayed moving, but it uses hydraulics instead of steam.
Recognition
On February 23, 2012, the Royal Mail introduced a stamp showing Newcomen's atmospheric steam engine as part of its "Britons of Distinction" series.