SAVERY, NEWCOMEN, AND THE EARLY HISTORY OF THE STEAM-ENGINE. PART II. BY RHYS JENKINS, M.1.MECH.E. (Read at Tavistock, 23rd July, 1914.) THOMAS NEWCOMEN. MATERIALS for a biography of Thomas Newcomen are even more scanty than is the case with Savery; but we are in possession, at least, of the main facts concerning his birth and parentage, his marriage, and the date and place of his death.1 The family of Newcomen is of Lincolnshire origin; it was first represented in Devonshire by the Reverend Elias Newcomen, who was presented to the living of Stoke Fleming in 1600. Elias was the younger son of Charles Newcomen, of Bourne, Lincolnshire (who came of the family of Newcomen, of Saltfleetby in that county); he graduated B.A. at Cambridge in 1568-9, and afterwards conducted a grammar school in London; he married, in 1579, Prothesa Shobridge, of Shoreditch, and died and was buried at Stoke Fleming in 1614. A grandson of the Rector of Stoke Fleming, another Elias and a resident in Dartmouth, was the father of Thomas Newcomen, who was baptized on the 28th February, 1663, in St. Saviour's Church, Dartmouth. Some of the members of the Devonshire branch of the family seem to have attained to positions of importance 1 The account of Newcomen here presented is substantially the same as that given by the present writer in The Devonian Year Book, 1913; it has been thought advisable to embody it here with a view to giving as complete a treatment of the subject as possible. In dealing with the Newcomen engine a considerable amount of fresh matter has been introduced. in the county. In 1651 Thomas Newcomen, of Dartmouth, merchant, probably the uncle of the inventor, executed a deed of indemnity in the sum of £3000 in favour of William Lane, of Aveton Gifford, in the County of Devon, who had become his surety in a suit "then depending before the judges in the Upper Bench at Westminster." This would seem to be the same individual as the Thomas Newcomen who died in 1653, leaving two sons, Robert and Elias, and four daughters, and whose will mentions, among other items, "the house sold by my father-in-law Philpotte,' and Irish lands I adventured." Thomas Newcomen, the inventor, is stated by Mr. Lidstone, of Dartmouth, to have been apprenticed to an ironmonger at Exeter. He then set up in business in his native town, and married, in 1705, Hannah Waymouth, the daughter of a farmer at Malborough, near Kingsbridge. He had two sons, Thomas and Elias. Lidstone says that Thomas was a serge-maker in Taunton, and that Elias assisted his father in connection with his engine work, and he mentions a third child, Hannah, who married Mr. Wolcott, uncle to the celebrated "Peter Pindar." Lidstone adds that Newcomen's portrait was painted in oils by "Peter," but is thought to be lost. According to the same authority Newcomen, who was a Baptist, preached occasionally himself and held meetings in his house, which led to his being prosecuted by the authorities.1 Mr. Lidstone was a diligent student of the history of Newcomen. It appears that in 1857 and again in 1873, he was advocating the erection of a monument to the memory of the inventor. A son and a daughter of Newcomen are mentioned by Dr. Richard Pococke, who visited Dartmouth in 1750. "Mr. Newcomen, an ironmonger here, with Captain Savery, invented the fire-engine: his son and daughter found out the beautiful sea plants here on the rocks and on the shoar after storms."2 There are very few contemporary references to Newcomen's connection with the steam-engine. The earliest is afforded by an engraving, dated 1719, of an engine erected at Dudley Castle in 1712, when the inventor would 1 66 Newcomen": Digest of a paper read at the Exeter Meeting of the Royal Archæological Institute, August 1, 1873, by Mr. Thomas Lidstone, of Dartmouth. Reprint from the Dartmouth Chronicle. 2 The Travels of Dr. Richard Pococke. Ed. by J. J. Cartwright (Camden Society). be forty-nine years of age. As will be seen later, it is likely that he had been considering the subject, possibly experimenting, for perhaps twenty years before, but of this no documentary evidence is available. It is somewhat remarkable that no scrap of writing in Newcomen's hand, or anything bearing his signature, has been discovered. Newcomen died in London in 1729. There is an obituary note in the Monthly Chronicle, Vol. II, p. 169: "About the same time (August 7th, 1729) died Mr. Thomas Newcomen, sole inventor of that surprising machine for raising water by fire." Lidstone, from traditional information, stated that he died of a fever at the house of a friend in London, and was buried in Bunhill Fields. The statement that he died in London is substantiated by, and the exact date of his decease is given in, a letter in Dr. Rippon's Collections relating to the Bunhill Fields Burial Ground.2 It would appear that a Thomas Newcomen, probably a son of Thomas Newcomen, the serge-maker of Taunton, and a grandson of the inventor, had come to London in 1794 and had applied to Dr. Rippon (who was a Devonian) for information as to the place of burial of his ancestor, and at Dr. Rippon's request had sent him the only particulars in his possession as to the date and circumstances of the death. The letter is on a single sheet of letter paper, and is addressed on the back to Revd. Mr. Rippon, Grange Walk, South Wark; it runs as follows: "DEAR COZ, "LONDON, 5th August, 1729. "I am sorry that I should be the messenger of the ill tho' expected news of my Uncle's, yr Fathers Death, for this morning about 6 of the clock it pleas'd the Almighty to take him out of this miserable world, doubtless to enjoy a far better. Indeed Mr. Wallin very prudently ordered the greatest care to be taken of him. that possibly could. He had the advice of two Skilful Physitians every day. He had a careful Nurse continually with him, and one or two sat up with him every night. He was very submissive and patient all his Illness and departed without a sigh or a groan, as if He 1 Notes and Queries, 6, S. Vol. III, p. 368. 2 British Museum. Add. MSS., No. 28513. had been fallen asleep. If you have any Business here, which I can by any possible means do for you, I desire you would send word of it to 66 66 "Sr Yr Sincere Friend & Serv 'Please to direct to me at "JOHN NEWCOMEN. "Mr. Thos Dugdale's Attorney at law To Mr. Thomas Newcomen "Above is a Coppy of the letter you requested : shd anything come to hand in yr search, that wd assist me in my enquiries, please to direct for me whence this is dated, and you will much oblige. "Sr Yr Obed. hble. Servt "THOS. NEWCOMEN." The statement, made by Lidstone, that Newcomen was buried in Bunhill Fields has been verified by reference to the Register Book of Burials, in which, under the date August 8th, 1729, is an entry, "Mr. Newcomen from St. Mary Magdalen buried in a valt 00-14-00." The entry supplies incidentally the name of the London parish in which the death took place. From the terms of John Newcomen's letter it would seem not unlikely that Newcomen died in the house of the Mr. Wallin referred to, and he may have been the same person as the Ed. Wallin, of London, Gent., who figures in 1725 as one of the Committee of the Proprietors of the Invention for raising water by fire. It is clear that at the time of his death, Newcomen did not live in London, and, although his business engagements in various parts of the country would suggest the desirability of some place of residence less inaccessible than Dartmouth must have been in his days, it would seem that his native place, and perhaps the house in which he was born, was still his home. The house, in Lower Street, Dartmouth, in which it was said that he lived was sold and taken down in 1884 by the order of the Local Board of Health. Mr. Lidstone "purchased the ancient carved and moulded woodwork of its street frontage, etc., which he rebuilt in Ridge-hill in the parish of Townstall in Dartmouth, carefully replacing in the sitting-room the clavel (wooden lintel) of the fire-place at which Newcomen (according to popular tradition) sat, when he first noticed the effect steam produced on the lid of his tea-kettle. The house is named Newcomen Cottage." "1 Newcomen died intestate, and letters of administration were granted to his widow. On this point there is, in the Woodcroft Collection in the Patent Office Library, a note, dated Dartmouth, 23rd December, 1871, addressed to Bennet Woodcroft, in which Lidstone states: "I had an old gentleman staying with me this year, who has told me a host of things about Newcomen. This gentleman's father wound up Mrs. Newcomen's (the widow's) business in Dartmouth." If we are to read this note as implying that Newcomen carried on the business of ironmonger in Dartmouth throughout his life we are driven to the conclusion that he, in common with many another great inventor, had not found his invention pave the way to wealth. THE NEWCOMEN ENGINE. The Newcomen engine had very little in common with Savery's fire-engine. It certainly raised water by the "force of fire," and it relied for its action upon the condensation of steam, but apart from this it was an entirely different machine. Savery utilized the condensation for the suction action of his apparatus, but he relied upon pressure of steam for the forcing action, and the pressure was necessarily commensurate with the height through which it was required to force the water. In the Newcomen engine steam at, or very little above, atmospheric pressure was employed, and the pressure of the atmosphere was relied upon entirely to perform the work; for this reason the engine was sometimes called the "atmospheric engine." An open-topped cylinder fitted with a piston was placed directly above the boiler, and above 1 Some Account of the Residence of the Inventor of the Steam-engine, by Thomas Lidstone, of Dartmouth. 1869. |