THOMAS NEWCOMEN: BIOGRAPHY AND INVENTIONS - CULTURE VOCABULARY - 2025

Thomas Newcomen (1664-1729) was an inventor and blacksmith of English origin considered one of his founding fathers of the Industrial Revolution, a historical process of transformation that spanned the social, cultural and economic spheres, all driven by the many technological advances that came out. light in the second half of the 18th century.

A group of privileged minds, including Thomas Newcomen, are credited with imagining, developing and testing to success countless machines that supported human activity from different aspects. The use of animal traction began to end and the substitution of workers in dangerous or repetitive tasks began.

One of those activities in the economy that urgently needed progress was mining. The high production costs due to the slowness in the mineral extraction processes, the imminent danger with each meter that was descended in a mine with little lighting, with stale air and flooded with groundwater, were challenges to overcome.

Thomas Newcomen knew the environment well and thanks to the detailed observation he made of the processes of the time, he managed to devise a way to give a hand to those who cried out for his help from the depths of flooded wells, in the midst of very deplorable excavation conditions.. Thanks to this Newcomen is considered the father of the Industrial Revolution.

Biography

Most historians agree that he was born in England on February 12, 1663 in Dartmouth, an area belonging to the county of Devon, into a merchant family.

While it is true that there are no extensive records that speak of Thomas Newcomen's parents, it is known that their names were Elías and Sarah Newcomen.

Elías was a prominent and skilled merchant, shopkeeper and boat owner. Of his mother, Sarah - who left the earthly plane when Thomas was just a little boy - very little is known.

A reasonable time after the death of his mother, his father contracted a new marriage with Alice Trenhale, who ultimately took charge of raising the future inventor.

Young Newcomen

As a young man (it was in the early 1680s), he was employed as an engineering apprentice and later engaged in iron trading.

He sought support from a close childhood friend named John Calley, and with him he partnered to open his first hardware business, a task through which he was able to get up close to many of the mine owners in the area.

Influenced by this interesting and lucrative medium, he learned the blacksmith trade without neglecting his engineering studies, studies that provided him with the necessary tools to develop the machine that gave him entry into history.

Pastor Newcomen

Newcomen was a lay preacher and reference for all those who sought him out in the local Baptist church; in 1710 he became pastor of a local group of that current.

His connections within that church allowed him to have access to people of different socioeconomic levels; among these people were Jonathan Hornblower (father and son), who became financially involved with Thomas allowing the latter to expand the scope of his future machine.

Parallel to his religious life, his commercial activities and his studies, he developed a curiosity about the operation of certain machines of his time, especially the steam engine of the English engineer and inventor Thomas Savery.

Savery, also born in Devon, built and patented in 1698 a machine that, according to Newcomen's criteria, did not take full advantage of its potential. Later this inventor developed an atmospheric steam engine that involved a transformation of many of the processes carried out at that time.

Last years

After the appearance of the Newcomen machine, the history of its inventor tends to fade over time. There are no precise records of the causes of his death, but it occurred on August 5, 1729 at the home of the Baptist pastor and friend Edward Wallin when Newcomen was 66 years old.

Inventions

Atmospheric steam engine

The invention for which Thomas Newcomen earned his highest recognition was the atmospheric steam engine.

This machine arose from the analysis and combination of the ideas raised in the construction of its predecessors: that of the Englishman Thomas Savery in 1698 and that of the Frenchman Denis Papin in 1690. While it is true that these worked, Newcomen set out to optimize the force of work resulting from the use of steam.

With the collaboration of his partner John Calley (mechanic by profession) and with the advice of Robert Hooke (English physicist), Newcomen tried to find a solution to a problem that he identified: the high cost of using horses to pump the water from the bottom of the tanks. tin mines.

However, it took him at least 10 years to come up with a practical and functional solution for his steam engine version.

Functioning

The Savery machines - unveiled in 1698 - and Newcomen - which saw the light in 1712 - featured similar elements such as a boiler, a water tank, and even the fundamentals of operation (creating a vacuum within a sealed space by cooling water vapor).

However, the main difference was in the final way in which both teams extracted the water from the bottom of the mine.

Savery steam engine

Savery's machine had two connected pipes: one for pumping to the outside and another for the water lying at the bottom of the mine.

The boiler was progressively heated and the valve that connected to the pumping tank was opened, the latter filling with steam. This tank expelled the air it contained towards the exterior pipe, passing through a rudimentary check or non-return valve.

The pumping was made effective by cooling the pumping tank from the outside; For this, water was allowed to run over it. It was at that moment when the water vapor in the tank condensed and created the expected vacuum state.

The vacuum sucked and carried the water to the check valve of the pipeline to the outside, the boiler valve was opened a second time and the pressurized steam expelled the water.

Newcomen machine

In Thomas Newcomen's atmospheric steam engine the vacuum reservoir had a piston that was connected to a rocker arm, and this to a counterweight.

As in the previous machine, its tank was filled with steam when the boiler was turned on and the valve was opened. The difference was marked by the path to which the piston was subjected by the action of water vapor and the pressure of the air outside the machine.

When steam filled the tank, the piston was forced to rise and the rocker was tilted, raising the part that connected with the piston and lowering the part of the counterweight.

When the tank was cooled and a vacuum was created by condensation of steam, the piston stroke was reversed: the part moved downwards, sucked in by lack of air and aided by atmospheric pressure, and the rocker tipped the opposite: part connected to the piston and the counterweight rose.

All this movement scheme made work a secondary pump that was connected to a line activated by the counterweight. The secondary pump was driven by the steam engine, so it finally removed the water from the bottom of the mine.

This type of machine used mineral coal as a regular fuel, so it was continuously extracted to supply the demand for its use in the industrial field for the first time.

Patent

Newcomen did not have the possibility to patent his invention, because Savery, at the time of registering his machine, obtained a broad patent (GB 356 AD) that covered all 'cylinders or motors to lift water or cause movements to any type of mill by the driving force of fire. '

This was not a limitation and both inventors, later in partnership, worked and installed a large number of pumping equipment for mines.

Significance of the Newcomen machine

From the time when the first Newcomen machine was installed until 1733 there were more than 100 teams working in mines throughout England, and the use of this machine was in force for about thirty years after its first installation, since there had not been another inventor who proposed a different tool.

It wasn't until 1765 that another inventor, James Watt, made improvements to the original design. This significantly increased the power resulting from the use of steam.

However, it is worth noting that the original machines provided their services for a long time after the modifications made by Watt, which speaks of the efficiency that these offered to those who used them. Only when the cost of coal became a weight variable did the migration to the new technology begin.

References

1. The industrial Revolution. Retrieved on November 30, 2018 from Wikipedia: es.wikipedia.org
2. Thomas Newcomen. Retrieved on November 30, 2018 from Wikipedia: es.wikipedia.org
3. Newcomen machine. Retrieved on November 30, 2018 from Wikipedia: es.wikipedia.org
4. History: Thomas Newcomen. Retrieved on November 30, 2018 from BBC: bbc.co.uk
5. Thomas Newcomen. Retrieved on November 30, 2018 from Famous Scientists: famousscientists.org
6. Thomas Newcomen. Retrieved on November 30, 2018 from Encyclopaedia Britannica: britannica.com
7. Newcomen, Thomas. Retrieved on November 30, 2018 from Encyclopedia.com: encyclopedia.com