| James Watts revolutionary steam engine |
This is the oldest working steam engine in the world. It was designed by the firm of Boulton & Watt and installed on the Birmingham-Wolverhampton canal in 1779. It saved water by pumping it back up a series of canal locks at Smethwick. The engine lifted the equivalent of 1,500 buckets of water each minute! The water refilled the canal at the top of the locks, so that 250 boats could pass through the locks every week. Thomas Newcomen had designed the first practical steam engine, installed at a coalmine in Staffordshire in 1712. Newcomen’s engines became very successful, although they were inefficient and extremely expensive. James Watt tried to improve the performance of Newcomen’s engine. After years of experiments, he tripled its efficiency and doubled the power. The design of this engine was based on Watt’s patent of 1769 ‘for a new method of lessening the consumption of steam and fuel in fire engines’. It was the first engine in the world to use both the expansive force of steam and a vacuum at the same time. Boulton & Watt’s engines marked the start of the Industrial Revolution. Production became independent of water, wind, animal and human power as its source of energy. Engineering had opened up a new era. James Watt’s steam engine business continued for over a century after he retired. With innovative equipment and good organisation, the firm prospered. Steam engines were exported all over the world. The business continued until 1896. Category: People , Process , Product Institute: Thinktank Your Comments (1)
Tom Smith
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| Watt was buried near where we used to live, in the grounds of St. Mary's Church in Handsworth. A statue of him, Boulton and Murdoch is in Birmingham, as are two other statues of him alone, one in Chamberlain Square and the other outside the Law Courts. Watt is for sure one of the most significant figures in the history of technology. |
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