John Smeaton and the Fire Engine: 1765–1785

Abstract

This paper examines John Smeatons’s contribution to the development of the atmospheric type engine during the period 1765 to 1785. Smeaton was predominantly involved in the design of pumping, and returning engines. His engine work resulted in some of the finest engines of their type which pushed the technology of the atmospheric engine to, and sometimes beyond, its limits.

Keywords:

• John Smeaton
• atmospheric engine
• Newcomen engine
• eighteenth century engines
• eighteenth century mining
• pumping engine
• returning engine
• mine pumping
• mine hoisting
• foundry engine

Acknowledgements

Tony Clarke, Steve Grudgings, London Metropolitan Archives, Northumberland Record Office, The Royal Society Library.

Notes

1. J. S. Allen and L. T. C. Rolt, The Steam Engine of Thomas Newcomen (Ashbourne: Landmark Publishing, 1997).

2. H. W. Dickinson and A. A. Gomme, A Catalogue of the Civil and Mechanical Engineering Designs 1741–1792 of John Smeaton, F.R.S. Preserved in the Library of the Royal Society (London: The Newcomen Society, 1950) Vol. III, 5V, p. 58, plate 5.

3. J. Smeaton, Designs, Vol. III, 8, 8V, 9; 1812a, pp. 223–229.

4. J. Farey, Treatise on the Steam Engine Historical, Practical, and Descriptive, Volume 1, David and Charles reprint, 1971, Newton Abbott (1827), p. 257.

5. Farey, p. 257; R. Stuart, Historical and Descriptive Anecdotes of Steam Engines and their Inventors and Improvers (London: Wightman & Co., 1829) Vol. 2, p. 627.

6. N. Cossons, ed., Rees’s Manufacturing Industry (1819–20) (1972) Vol. 5, p. 87.

7. P. Temple, ed. New River Head (Northern Clerkenwell and Pentonville, 2008), Survey of London Chapter VI, Volume 47, p. 165–184; R. Ward, London’s New River (Historical Publications Ltd, 2003).

8. Ward, pp. 136–8.

9. S. E. Kilburn, ‘Smeaton’s engine of 1767 at New River Head, London,’ Trans Newcomen Soc, 19 (1938), 119–126.

10. Dickinson and Gomme, pp. 59–60.

11. Ward, p. 152.

12. Farey, p. 158.

13. London Metropolitan Archive: ACC 2558/NR13/314/8/2.

14. Farey, p. 158.

15. London Metropolitan Archive: ACC 2558/NR13/314/9.

16. Temple, New River Head; Ward, p. 152.

17. Farey, p. 166.

18. Farey, pp. 158, 166–172.

19. Allen and Rolt, The Steam Engine; Farey, Treatise on the Steam Engine.

20. Farey, p. 235.

21. Allen and Rolt, pp. 115–116; Cossons, pp. 91–2; Farey, p. 7.

22. B. Watters, Where iron runs like water, a new history of the Carron Iron Works 1759–1982 (Edinburgh: John Donald Ltd., 1998).

23. J. Smeaton, Reports of the late John Smeaton (London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme & Brown, 1812a), Volume I, pp. 359–366.

24. Smeaton, pp. 367–375.

25. Ibid., pp. 384–394.

26. Ibid., pp. 376–379.

27. Farey, p. 291.

28. Ibid., p. 295.

29. Farey, pp. 204, 290–296, 326; A. Stowers, The development of the atmospheric steam engine after Newcomen’s death in 1729, Trans. Newcomen Soc, 35 (1964), 90–91).

30. H. W. Dickinson and R. Jenkin, James Watt and the Steam Engine, 1981 ed. (1927), p. 4.

31. Cossons, p. 87.

32. Dickinson and Gomme, pp. 67–69.

33. Newcastle Courant 5 June 1779.

34. Northumberland Record Office: NRO 602 3-1.

35. Northumberland Record Office: NRO 602 3-1; Farey, p. 174).

36. Northumberland Record Office: NRO 602 3-1.

37. Cossons, p. 91, Farey, p.135.

38. Farey, p. 135.

39. W. D. Lawson, Wesleyan Local Preachers: Biographical Illustrations of their Position in the Connexion, Utility in the Church and Influence in the World (Newcastle-upon-Tyne, 1874), p. 153.

40. Farey, pp. 134, 139, 173; NRO 602 3-1.

41. Farey, pp. 172–173; Farey, p. 92.

42. Newcastle Courant 5 June 1779.

43. Farey, p. 172.

44. W. Pryce, Mineralogia Cornubiensis, A Treatise on Minerals, Mines and Mining (1778), p. xiv.

45. Pryce, p. 308.

46. R. J. Stewart, Mine Pumping Engines in Eighteenth Century (Cornwall, 2017).

47. Dickinson and Gomme, pp. 72–74.

48. R. J. Stewart, ‘The Coster family and its contribution to mine drainage in south west England,’ J Trevithick Soc, 42 (2015), 130–146; Stewart, Mine Pumping Engines.

49. Farey, pp. 190–191, Smeaton, pp. 347–349.

50. Smeaton, p. 349.

51. Wilson papers: Cornwall Record Office (CRO) Truro AD1583/11/68. Farey, p. 190.

52. Farey, p. 192.

53. Smeaton, p. 237; Stewart, p. 68.

54. Farey, p. 237.

55. W. Pole, A Treatise on the Cornish Pumping Engine (London: Weale, 1844), p. 19.

56. S. Smiles, Lives of Boulton and Watt (London: John Murray, 1865), p. 76.

57. T. Wilson, Account of the state of the principal mines in the county of Cornwall at the time of the introduction of Mr. Watts improved steam engines into the county: in CRO (undated).

58. Wilson papers: AD1583/11/68) CRO.

59. Wilson papers: CRO AD1583/11/68.

60. Dickinson and Jenkin, p. 328.

61. Anon, The Naval Chronicle (1799) Volume II, p. 285, Farey, p. 263, C. H. Manstein, Memoirs of Russia, Historical, Political and Military, from the Year 1727 to 1744 (London: T Becket and P.A. Da Hondt, 1770), p. 415.

62. Anon., pp. 267–8.

63. Watters, pp. 45, 50–51.

64. Dickinson and Gomme, pp. 70–71; Farey, p. 264.

65. Farey, p. 266, Watters, p. 51.

66. Anon, p. 285, Farey, pp. 263–266.

67. Anon., On the Naval Resources of Turkey and Russia in the Black Sea, The United Service Journal and Naval and Military Magazine, Part II (1829), p. 439.

68. Smeaton, p. 346.

69. Dickinson and Gomme, pp. 74–5.

70. Watters, p. 17.

71. M. J. T. Lewis, Early Wooden Railways (Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1970), p. 255.

72. Smeaton, pp. 334–341.

73. Dickinson and Gomme, pp. 76–77.

74. A. Raistrick, Dynasty of Ironfounders, the Darbys and Coalbrookdale, 2nd ed. (Newton Abbott: David & Charles, 1970), p. 150.

75. Smeaton, p. 373; Farey, pp. 279–280.

76. Farey, p. 280.

77. Smeaton, p. 367.

78. Watters, p. 51.

79. Smeaton, p. 406.

80. Farey, pp. 278–9.

81. Farey, p. 280.

82. Dickinson and Gomme, pp. 65–6.

83. Farey, pp. 280–281.

84. Smeaton, p. 375.

85. Farey, pp. 297–304, Rees’s Cyclopedia Vol. 38: Winding Machinery; Smeaton, pp. 435–438.

86. Farey, p. 304.

87. cited J. Brand, The History and Antiquities of the Town and Country of Newcastle Upon Tyne, Volume II (London: B. White & Son, 1789), p. 686.

88. Farey, p. 305.

89. Dickinson and Gomme, pp. 82–4.

90. Farey, pp. 305–6.

91. Farey, p. 257; Stuart, p. 627.

92. Dickinson and Jenkin, p. 138; Farey, p. 257.

93. Allen and Rolt, pp. 28, 81–4; Farey, pp. 242–3, Ward, p. 232.

94. Farey, pp. 242–245.

95. Farey, pp. 251–3.

96. J. Radley, ‘York Waterworks, and Other Waterworks in the North before 1800,’ Trans Newcomen Soc, 39 (1970), 143–156.

97. Farey, p. 256.

98. J. Holmes, A Short Narrative of the Genius, Life and Works of the Late Mr. John Smeaton, Civil Engineer, F.R S. (London: W. Woodfall, 1793), p. 14.

99. Farey, p. 305.

100. A.W. Skempton, ed., John Smeaton FRS (London: Thomas Telford Ltd., 1981), pp. 26, 193.

101. cited in Dickinson and Jenkin, p. 116.

102. Skempton, p. 193.

103. Aris’s Birmingham Gazette 20 April 1778 cited in Dickinson and Jenkin, p. 136.

104. Skempton, p. 193.

105. J. Smeaton, The Miscellaneous Papers of John Smeaton, Civil Engineer, &c. F.R.S. Comprising his Communications to the Royal Society Printed in the Philosophical Transactions Forming a Fourth Volume to his Reports (1814), p.182.

106. Holmes, p. 6.