'''Thomas Newcomen''' (baptized
February 24,1664-
August 5,1729), blacksmith and inventor - though he called himself an
ironmonger - was born in Dartmouth,
Devon,
England. Thomas Newcomen is frequently referred to as the
father of the industrial revolution as its first innovator and
entrepreneur.
In 1712 Newcomen, with his business partner
Thomas Savery, built an atmospheric
steam engine for
pumping water out of mines, from
coal mines to the
tin mines of Newcomen's native south-west England, particularly in
Cornwall.
The Newcomen engine was first used near at the Conygree coalworks near
Dudley in the
West Midlands in 1712. A working replica has been constructed at the
Black Country Living Museum there.
Further engines were installed by Newcomen himself in mines in the Midlands, north
Wales and
Cumbria, with over 100 built before the
patent expired in 1733. The design was later improved by
James Watt.
In
London in 1920, a
learned society to promote and encourage the study of the history of
engineering and technology was formed, called the
Newcomen Society, after Thomas Newcomen. An American branch was established in 1923, and there are branches in
Birmingham and
Manchester, but the
Newcomen Society of the United States is now entirely separate from its UK counterpart.
Newcomen, Thomas
Newcomen, Thomas
Newcomen, Thomas
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