Old iron

Mono Monday: Inventions of the 18th Century the steam engine


This week's Mono Monday challenge set us some history homework.  As it turned out I'm grateful for the head scratching the challenge has caused as I don't think that I would have taken this shot without that encouragement, I'm almost tempted to add a Derelict Sunday tag to this one, as that engine has clearly seen much better days.

Although the first use of steam to drive a pump dates back to Thomas Savery's 1698 design, it wasn't until Newcomen's pump in 1712 that a piston was first powered by steam. The real step forward came when Scotsman James Watt introduced a number of significant new engineering improvements.  In the 1770s in Scotland Watt developed an engine that could rotate a shaft, rather than just produce an up-and-down pumping action, as well as a flywheel that allowed for smooth power transfer between the engine and the workload. With these and other innovations, the steam engine became applicable to a variety of factory processes and the industrial revolution moved up a gear.

Reducing the size of the engine such that it was suitable to provide 
a mobile power plant was something that would not happen until the turn of the next century.  It wasn't until 1804 that the first steam engine locomotive was developed by Richard Tevithick, while in 1807 in USA John Fitch was to develop the first boat driven by a steam engine.

Thanks to Laurie54 for setting us the Mono Monday challenge this week.