Smethwick Engine | |
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![]() The engine in steam at Birmingham's Thinktank museum | |
Origins | |
Type | Watt beam engine |
Designer | James Watt |
Maker | Boulton and Watt |
Date | May 1779 |
Country of origin | England |
Former operator | Birmingham Canal Navigations |
Purpose | Pumping water |
Measurements | |
Cylinders | 1 |
Bore | 32 inches (81 cm) |
Stroke | 8 feet (244 cm) |
Preservation | |
Collection | Birmingham Museums Trust |
Location | Thinktank |
Working | Yes |
The Smethwick Engine is a Watt steam engine made by Boulton and Watt, which was installed near Birmingham, England, and was brought into service in May 1779. Now at Thinktank, Birmingham Science Museum, it is the oldest working steam engine [1] [2] and the oldest working engine in the world. [3] [4]
Originally, it was one of two steam engines used to pump water back up to the 491-foot (149.7 m) summit level of the BCN Old Main Line (Birmingham Canal) canal at Smethwick, not far from the Soho Foundry where it was made. The other engine, also built by Boulton and Watt, was at the other end of the summit level at Spon Lane. In 1804 a second Boulton and Watt engine was added alongside the 1779 engine.
The engines were needed because local water sources were insufficient to supply water to operate the six locks either side of the canal's original summit. The locks could have been avoided if a tunnel had been built, but the ground was too unstable for James Brindley to build a tunnel using the techniques available at the time. In the 1780s, a cutting was constructed by John Smeaton, enabling three of the six locks on each side to be removed.
In the 1820s, Thomas Telford constructed a new canal parallel to the old in a deeper cutting, at the 453 ft (138.1 m) Birmingham Level, creating the largest man-made earthworks in the world at the time. It was spanned by the Galton Bridge. The engine was still needed, despite both these developments, and Thomas Telford constructed the Engine Arm Aqueduct carrying the Engine Arm branch canal over his New Main Line so that coal could still be transported along the arm to feed the Smethwick Engine.
In 1892, a replacement engine was built in a new pumping house, now Grade II listed, [5] [6] next to Brasshouse Lane, as the original Smethwick Engine was considered uneconomic to repair; the latter was removed for preservation in 1897–98 [7] to the BCN, later British Waterways, Ocker Hill depot where it remained until acquired by Birmingham City Council. It is now part of the collection of Birmingham Museums and is on display at Thinktank, Birmingham Science Museum at Millennium Point. It is the oldest working engine in the world.
The engine house was demolished in 1897. Its original site and foundations can still be seen on Bridge Street North in Smethwick, just north of the junction with Rolfe Street. Tours of the site can be arranged through the Galton Valley Canal Heritage Centre which is based in the New Smethwick Pumping Station and regularly opened by Sandwell Museum Service and The Friends of Galton Valley.
The pumping station was featured in an episode of The Water Boatman presented by Alan Herd on the Discovery Shed TV channel in November 2011.[ relevant? ]
Point | Coordinates (Links to map resources) | OS Grid Ref | Notes |
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Smethwick Engine original pumphouse | 52°29′52″N1°57′44″W / 52.4977°N 1.9622°W | SP025889 | Bridge Street North, Smethwick |
Engine Arm Aqueduct | 52°29′52″N1°57′59″W / 52.4979°N 1.9665°W | SP022889 | |
New Smethwick Pumphouse | 52°29′53″N1°58′23″W / 52.4981°N 1.9731°W | SP018889 | Brasshouse Lane, Smethwick |
The Watt steam engine design became synonymous with steam engines, and it was many years before significantly new designs began to replace the basic Watt design.
Soho Foundry is a factory created in 1775 by Matthew Boulton and James Watt and their sons Matthew Robinson Boulton and James Watt Jr. at Smethwick, West Midlands, England, for the manufacture of steam engines. Now owned by Avery Weigh-Tronix, it is used for the manufacture of weighing machines.
Smethwick is an industrial town in Sandwell, West Midlands, England. It lies 4 miles (6 km) west of Birmingham city centre. Historically it was in Staffordshire and then Worcestershire before being placed into then West Midlands county.
Birmingham Canal Navigations (BCN) is a network of canals connecting Birmingham, Wolverhampton, and the eastern part of the Black Country. The BCN is connected to the rest of the English canal system at several junctions. It was owned and operated by the Birmingham Canal Navigation Company from 1767 to 1948.
Boulton & Watt was an early British engineering and manufacturing firm in the business of designing and making marine and stationary steam engines. Founded in the English West Midlands around Birmingham in 1775 as a partnership between the English manufacturer Matthew Boulton and the Scottish engineer James Watt, the firm had a major role in the Industrial Revolution and grew to be a major producer of steam engines in the 19th century.
A beam engine is a type of steam engine where a pivoted overhead beam is used to apply the force from a vertical piston to a vertical connecting rod. This configuration, with the engine directly driving a pump, was first used by Thomas Newcomen around 1705 to remove water from mines in Cornwall. The efficiency of the engines was improved by engineers including James Watt, who added a separate condenser; Jonathan Hornblower and Arthur Woolf, who compounded the cylinders; and William McNaught, who devised a method of compounding an existing engine. Beam engines were first used to pump water out of mines or into canals but could be used to pump water to supplement the flow for a waterwheel powering a mill.
The Spon Lane Locks Branch is an 800-yard section of the BCN Main Line canal in Oldbury, England, which forms a connecting canal "sliproad" where the Old BCN Main Line crosses the New BCN Main Line at the Stewart Aqueduct. It runs westwards from Spon Lane Junction via the three Spon Lane Locks to Bromford Junction. It was originally part of the Wednesbury branch of Birmingham Canal which opened in 1769. At the top lock, there is a rare example of a split bridge, which enabled a horse to cross the canal without being detached from the barge. The rope passed through a gap at the centre of the bridge between its two halves. However, this particular example is a modern reconstruction, dating from 1986. These are probably the oldest working locks in the country. There is pedestrian access to a tow path for its entire length, but being narrow and muddy, it is not suitable for cyclists.
The Ketley Canal was a tub boat canal that ran for about 1.5 miles (2.4 km) from Oakengates to Ketley works in Shropshire, England. The canal was built about 1788 and featured the first inclined plane in Britain. The main cargo of the canal was coal and ironstone. The inclined ceased to be used in 1816, when Ketley Works was closed, but the upper canal was not finally abandoned until the 1880s. A few traces of the canal are still visible in the landscape.
The Engine Arm or Birmingham Feeder Arm near Smethwick, West Midlands, England, is a short canal which was originally part of a feeder tunnel for a pumping engine. When the Smethwick flight of locks were reduced from six to three, the pumping engine was moved to a new site, which allowed part of the feeder tunnel to be opened up and made navigable, so that coal supplies for the engine could be delivered by barge. The Engine Arm also supplied the pumped water to the 473-foot (144 m) Wolverhampton level of the lowered summit. The arm was extended between 1825 and 1830 by Thomas Telford to carry water from Rotton Park Reservoir to the Old Main Line of the BCN Main Line Canal, and the Engine Arm Aqueduct was inserted to carry it over the new main line constructed at that time, which was 20 feet (6.1 m) lower. The arm is now managed by the Canal and River Trust and the basin beyond the site of the pumping station, which was replaced by a new engine house near Brasshouse Lane bridge in 1892, is used for residential moorings.
The BCN Main Line, or Birmingham Canal Navigations Main Line is the evolving route of the Birmingham Canal between Birmingham and Wolverhampton in England.
The Birmingham Canal Navigations (BCN), a network of narrow canals in the industrial midlands of England, is built on various water levels. The three longest are the Wolverhampton, Birmingham, and Walsall levels. Locks allow boats to move from one level to another.
The Titford Canal is a narrow (7 foot) canal, a short branch of the Birmingham Canal Navigations (BCN) in Oldbury, West Midlands, England.
The Horseley Ironworks was a major ironworks in the Tipton area in the county of Staffordshire, now the West Midlands, England.
Smethwick Junction is the name of the canal junctions where the Birmingham Canal Navigations Main Line Canal from Birmingham splits into the BCN Old Main Line and the BCN New Main Line near to Smethwick, West Midlands, England.
The Tipton Green Branch and Toll End Branch were narrow canals comprising part of the Birmingham Canal Navigations near Tipton, West Midlands, England. These canals no longer exist.
Spon Lane Junction is the original junction of the Wednesbury Canal and the Birmingham Canal, near Oldbury in the West Midlands, England.
The Wednesbury Oak Loop, sometimes known as the Bradley Arm, is a canal in the West Midlands, England. It is part of the Birmingham Canal Navigations (BCN), and was originally part of James Brindley's main line, but became a loop when Thomas Telford's improvements of the 1830s bypassed it by the construction of the Coseley Tunnel. The south-eastern end of the loop was closed and in parts built over, following the designation of the entire loop as "abandoned" in 1954, including the section which was filled in at the beginning of the 1960s to make way for the Glebefields Estate in Tipton.
Galton Valley Canal Museum is a small museum, located in Smethwick, England, on the border with Birmingham and alongside the BCN Main Line canals. The Museum tells the story of the development of the Galton Valley canals and those who designed, built and worked on them.
Old Bess is an early beam engine built by the partnership of Boulton and Watt. The engine was constructed in 1777 and worked until 1848.
Murray's Hypocycloidal Engine, now in Thinktank, Birmingham Science Museum, England, was made around 1805 and is the world's third-oldest working steam engine and the oldest working engine with a Tusi couple hypocycloidal straight line mechanism.