Thomas Newcomen was an English inventor who created the atmospheric engine, the first practical fuel-burning engine in 1712. He was an ironmonger by trade and a Baptist lay preacher by calling.
Thomas Savery was an English inventor and engineer. He invented the first commercially used steam-powered device, a steam pump which is often referred to as the "Savery engine". Savery's steam pump was a revolutionary method of pumping water, which solved the problem of mine drainage and made widespread public water supply practicable.
The atmospheric engine was invented by Thomas Newcomen in 1712, and is often referred to simply as a Newcomen engine. The engine was operated by condensing steam drawn into the cylinder, thereby creating a partial vacuum which allowed the atmospheric pressure to push the piston into the cylinder. It was the first practical device to harness steam to produce mechanical work. Newcomen engines were used throughout Britain and Europe, principally to pump water out of mines. Hundreds were constructed throughout the 18th century.
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.
Leadhills, originally settled for the accommodation of miners, is a village in South Lanarkshire, Scotland, 5+3⁄4 miles (9.3 km) WSW of Elvanfoot. The population in 1901 was 835. It was originally known as Waterhead.
Wanlockhead is a village in Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland, nestling in the Lowther Hills and 1 mile south of Leadhills at the head of the Mennock Pass, which forms part of the Southern Uplands. It is Scotland's highest village, at an elevation of around 466.6 m (1,531 ft), and can be accessed via the B797, which connects it to the A76 near Sanquhar and the A74(M) motorway at Abington.
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.
Levant Mine and Beam Engine is a National Trust property at Trewellard, Pendeen, near St Just, Cornwall, England, UK. Its main attraction is that it has the world's only Cornish beam engine still operated by steam on its original site. There is also a visitor centre, a short underground tour, and the South West Coast Path leads to Botallack Mine, via a cliff-top footpath.
A man engine is a mechanism of reciprocating ladders and stationary platforms installed in mines to assist the miners' journeys to and from the working levels. It was invented in Germany in the 19th century and was a prominent feature of tin and copper mines in Cornwall until the beginning of the twentieth century.
The Leadhills and Wanlockhead Light Railway was a short branch railway built in Scotland to serve mining settlements, high in the Lowther Hills, connecting them to the Carlisle - Carstairs main line. The line was opened in 1901 - 1902, and was the highest standard gauge railway line in the British Isles. Hoped-for developments did not emerge, and when the world lead price slumped in the 1920s, the line sustained heavy losses. It was closed on 2 January 1939.
The first recorded rudimentary steam engine was the aeolipile mentioned by Vitruvius between 30 and 15 BC and, described by Heron of Alexandria in 1st-century Roman Egypt. Several steam-powered devices were later experimented with or proposed, such as Taqi al-Din's steam jack, a steam turbine in 16th-century Ottoman Egypt, and Thomas Savery's steam pump in 17th-century England. In 1712, Thomas Newcomen's atmospheric engine became the first commercially successful engine using the principle of the piston and cylinder, which was the fundamental type of steam engine used until the early 20th century. The steam engine was used to pump water out of coal mines.
Prestongrange Museum is an industrial heritage museum at Prestongrange between Musselburgh and Prestonpans on the B1348 on the East Lothian coast, Scotland. Founded as the original site of the National Mining Museum, its operation reverted to East Lothian Council Museum Service in 1992.
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.
A water-returning engine was an early form of stationary steam engine, developed at the start of the Industrial Revolution in the middle of the 18th century. The first beam engines did not generate power by rotating a shaft but were developed as water pumps, mostly for draining mines. By coupling this pump with a water wheel, they could be used to drive machinery.
A cataract was a speed governing device used for early single-acting beam engines, particularly atmospheric engines and Cornish engines. It was a kind of water clock.
Resolution was an early beam engine, installed between 1781–1782 at Coalbrookdale as a water-returning engine to power the blast furnaces and ironworks there. It was one of the last water-returning engines to be constructed, before the rotative beam engine made this type of engine obsolete.
Fairbottom Bobs is a Newcomen-type beam engine that was used in the 18th century as a pumping engine to drain a colliery near Ashton-under-Lyne. It is probably the world's second-oldest surviving steam engine. The engine was installed at Cannel Colliery at Fairbottom near Ashton-under-Lyne around 1760 or 1764. It became known locally as Fairbottom Bobs.
The Newcomen Memorial Engine is a preserved beam engine in Dartmouth, Devon. It was preserved as a memorial to Thomas Newcomen, inventor of the beam engine, who was born in Dartmouth.
The Blacksyke Tower, Blacksyke Engine House, Caprington Colliery Engine House or even Lusk's Folly is a Scheduled Monument associated with a double lime kiln complex in the Parish of Riccarton and is a building of national importance. The Blacksyke site is a significant survival of early coal and lime industries. The engine house's mock Gothic tower house style is very unusual and rare survival of its type. This late-18th-century engine house would be one of the oldest surviving examples of its kind in the United Kingdom. The track bed of the wagonway and several sidings that linked the complex with the Kilmarnock and Troon Railway can still be clearly made out.
Leadhills railway station was opened on 1 October 1901 as the intermediate stop on the Leadhills and Wanlockhead Light Railway and served the lead mining area, farms and the village of Leadhills circa 5.5 miles (8.9 km) WSW of Elvanfoot railway station in South Lanarkshire until 2 January 1939 for passengers and freight. Until Wanlockhead station opened Leadhills was the highest standard gauge adhesion station in the United Kingdom.
