Thomas Newcomen developed the first truly successful steam engine, shortly after 1700 and it was described as ‘an epoch making invention’. In the Smeaton Lecture 2012, Dr Jim Andrew looked at the background to the exploitation of steam as a source of power, Newcomen’s developments and how his engines worked.
Dr Andrew, who studied Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics at Imperial and has a PhD in economic history, used the lecture to examine later improvements to Newcomen’s engine, particularly those of John Smeaton, and how study of the engines’ shortcomings led to James Watt making his significant contribution to steam power.
He also covered the continuing building of Newcomen engines into the nineteenth century, long after James Watt and others produced much more powerful and economic steam engines, countered some naive stories about how the engine was perfected and concluded on the achievements of Thomas Newcomen and his team.
For more information, please contact (recordedlectures@ice.org.uk)
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Smeaton Lecture 2012: Thomas Newcomen, Steam Power and the Industrial Revolution
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