Industrial steam power in London, 1780–1805

Abstract

This article examines the adoption of steam power to industry in London after 1780. It demonstrates that although steam power was less intensively applied in the Capital than some areas, steam engines were installed more widely there than hitherto documented, in a range of enterprises. The article also shows that the dominance of Boulton and Watt in London has been exaggerated and examines the early use of high pressure engines.

Keywords:

• London
• rotary steam engine
• steam power
• Farey
• Boulton and Watt
• Trevithick

Acknowledgements

The author thanks Julia Elton, Steve Grudgings and John Townley for helpful comments and advice, and Jennifer Tann for the use of her notes on Boulton and Watt. Any remaining errors are the author’s.

Notes

1 See, for example M. Daunton, ‘Industry in London: Revisions and Reflections,’ The London Journal, 21.1 (1996), 1–8; L.D. Schwartz, London in the Age of Industrialisation (Cambridge, 1992); D. Barnett, London, Hub of the Industrial Revolution A Revisionary History 1775–1825 (London: Tauris, 1998).

2 J. Kanefsky and J. Robey, ‘Steam Engines in 18th-Century Britain: A Quantitative Assessment,’ Technology and Culture, 21.2 (1980), 161–86.

3 The full Engine Database is available at http://coalpitheath.org.uk/engines/

4 J. Farey, A Treatise on the Steam Engine (1827, reprinted Newton Abbot: David and Charles 1971), 1, p. 54

5 H.W. Dickinson, The Water Supply of Greater London (London: Newcomen Society, 1954); B&W archives, Birmingham Archives and Heritage, MS 3147/1-11

6 P. Mathias, The Brewing Industry in England 1700–1830 (Cambridge University Press, 1959), esp pp. 80–98; B&W archives; T. Almeroth-Williams, ‘The Brewery Horse and the importance of equine power in Hanoverian London,’ Urban History, 40.3 (2013), 416–41.

7 T. Almeroth-Williams, City of Beasts (Manchester University Press, 2019), Ch. 1

8 See Note 1.

9 Dickinson, Water Supply; see also S. Grudgings and P. Tymkow, ‘Water Raising Technologies of the Chelsea Water Works Company,’ International Journal for the History of Engineering and Technology, 84.1 (2014), 88–104.

10 B. Weinreb et al., The London Encyclopaedia (3rd ed., London: Macmillan, 2008), pp. 55–7; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_urban_community_sizes

11 J. Feltham [Ed.], The Picture of London for 1802 (London: Phillips, 1802), ‘General Observations’; various later editions from the 1810s and 1820s Ed. J. Bitton (Longmans), pagination varies.

12 Barnett, London, pp. 27–8; Kent’s (1803), Wakefield’s (1793) and Post Office Directories (1801–1811); Mathias, Brewing Industry, pp. 78–98 and Appendices; F.M.L. Thompson, ‘Nineteenth-Century Horse Sense,’ Economic History Review, 29.1 (1976), 60–81.

13 M. Flinn with D. Stoker, The History of the British Coal Industry Vol. 2 (Oxford, 1984), p. 274

14 Watermills and Windmills of Middlesex (Second Edition) – The Mills Archive; ‘Industries of the Wandle Valley,’ http://www.wandle.org; Engine Database.

15 engineering-timelines.com/scripts/engineeringItem.asp?id=130; R. Wailes, ‘Tide Mills in England and Wales,’ TNS 19.1 (1938), 1–33; M. Mills, ‘A tidal mill at East Greenwich,’ http://www.glias.org.uk/journals/13-c.html

16 M. Short, Windmills of Lambeth (Lambeth, 1971), passim; https://www.brixtonwindmill.org/about/history/other-lambeth-mills/

17 Mathias, Brewing Industry, pp. 78–80; Almeroth-Williams, Chapter 1.

18 H.W. Dickinson and R. Jenkins, James Watt and the Steam Engine (Oxford, 1927, reprinted Ashbourne: Moorland 1981), pp. 353–7, Farey, Treatise, I, pp. 438–9.

19 Much discussed in the literature, e.g. Erich Roll, An Early Experiment in Industrial Organisation… (London: Longmans, 1932), pp. 107–10.

20 P.N. Wilson, ‘The Waterwheels of John Smeaton,’ Transactions of the Newcomen Society, 30.1 (1955), 25–48 esp. 35–6; Designs of the late John Smeaton (London: Farey, 1821), II, pp. 378–9.

21 B&W archives, James Watt to John Wilkinson, 4th November 1788.

22 Morning Chronicle Nov 1785; Dickinson and Jenkins, p. 314.

23 Farey, Treatise, I, pp. 122–3; Sun 329/503553 14/4/1785; Gaz. & New Daily Adv. 8/2/90, Kent's Directory 1803.

24 D. Miller and D. Rudder, ‘A ‘revolver’ evolving: the careers of a Boulton & Watt rotative steam engine at the Whitbread Brewery, London and the Powerhouse Museum, Sydney, 1784–2020,’ The International Journal for the History of Engineering & Technology, 89.1–2 (2019), 238–63.

25 See Table 3 for a list of the industries in which steam power had been employed by 1805

26 https://www.humanities.manchester.ac.uk/medialibrary/llc/files/david-denison/orford1.htm (I am grateful to David Kitching for this reference); For millwrights in London see J.G. Moher, ‘London Artisans and its old artisans – Millwrights 1775–1825’ (PhD update, Cambridge Repository, 2016) and The London Millwrights and Engineers 1775–1825 (PhD, London, 1989); also Mokyer et al., ‘The wheels of Change: Human Capital, Millwrights, and Industrialization in Eighteenth-Century England,’ www.researchgate.net/publications/337332236

27 Farey, Treatise, I, p. 654.

28 B&W archives, Catalogue of Old Engines; Laurence Ince, The Soho Engine Works 1796–1895 (Bewdley: ISSES, 2001), pp. 101–8.

29 P. Murray Thompson, Matthew Murray 1765–1826 and the firm of Fenton Murray and Co (Privately printed, 2015) Ch 5, Jon Howe, https://www.aleedsrevolution.co.uk/respect-overdue-how-matthew-murray-changed-the-world-and-why-nobody-knows-it

30 B&W Archives, David Watson senior to James Watt (Birmingham). 28 Mar. 1781 and folio 3/335.

31 Quoted by F. Trevithick, Life of Richard Trevithick (London: Spon, 1872), II, p. 7; original in Archives and Cornish Studies Service, Enys Papers. Letter, Trevithick to Giddy, Coalbrookdale, 23rd Sept 1804.

32 F. Trevithick, Life, II p. 134.

33 Trevithick, Life, I, p. 158.

34 Farey, Treatise, II, p .7ff esp.14–7.

35 Trevithick, Life, I, p. 158.

36 Morning Post 3 July 1805.

37 Mills, ‘East Greenwich.’

38 Farey, Treatise, II, pp. 9–10.

39 Morning Post, 29 June and 3 October 1804; https://www.gracesguide.co.uk/Joseph_Bramah.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

John Kanefsky

John studied and taught at the University of Exeter in the 1970s, and was awarded his PhD ‘The Diffusion of Power Technology in British Industry 1760–1870’ in 1979. He then joined the National Coal Board, first as one of the authors of their history of coal mining then until privatisation in management at national and Opencast headquarters. He subsequently worked at the Coal Authority and thereafter had a varied career in the NHS and educational research before retirement. He is now an Honorary Fellow of the University of Exeter. His research focuses on 18th century steam power and on in Devon in the 18th and 19th centuries. He is also currently an elected member of the Newcomen Society Council.