NOTES AND REFERENCES
- See pedigree by W[illiam] C[otton], Gent. mag., June 1842, p. 595; History of Parliament: the House of Commons, 1509–1558, ed. Stanley T. Bindoff, III, London: for History of Parliament Trust, 1982; ibid., 1558–1603, ed. P. W. Hasler, III, as above, 1981; Members of Parliament . . . part I: . . . 1213–1702, ordered . . . to be printed, 1 March 1878; GLC Record Office, P73/G15/125, register of St. Giles's, Camberwell, 22 May 1715, `Mr Tho: Savery buryed'; GLC RO, RI (xerox of next register), 5 March 1756, 'Catharine Alexander . . . Burd: (Savery's widowed sister-in-law), and, 17 April 1759, 'Martha Savery . . . Burl' (Savery's widow). Camberwell is now in the London Borough of Southwark. Neither the church records, local histories, nor the 1731–6 ratebook in the Borough High Street Library, Southwark, suggest any other connection of either family with the parish then, before, or after. The church itself was burnt out in 1841, and rebuilt; no memorial.
- Reprinted, slightly modified, in TNS, III (1922–3), and in Rhys Jenkins, Collected papers, Cambridge: UP, for Newcomen Soc., London, 1936. A shorter, variant, version is in the Devonian year book for 1915, London: London Devonian Association, pp. 75–84.
- SP 44/238, p. 164. (Margin: 'MI Savorys Petition.').
- CSPD 1698 (1933), pp. 33, 172; SP 44/347, p. 172.
- SO 3/20, f. 152r.
- Patent No. 356, 25 25 1698.
- James Brydges's diary, cit. Charles Henry C. Baker and Muriel I. Baker, Life and circumstances of James Brydges . . ., Oxford, 1949, p. 39. Reading and date confirmed courtesy of Mary L. Robertson, Curator of MSS, Huntington Library, San Marino, California, in letter of 1 April 1982.
- c 24 (3) A list of the Royal Society of London, London: for J. Morphew, 1718, p. 21; and DNB.
- 'Also the Gentlemen of the Royal Society have honoured me by inviting me to be curator of their experiments: and it would seem that stimulated by such a learned society I could achieve much more than' here, so he would like to accept, but the Landgrave of Hesse-Kassel will not allow it. If Papin had returned to London then, Savery's conflict with him would have come sooner. (Papin-Leibniz correspondence at Hanover, letter no. 25 of transcripts made 1850–51, just after their discovery, for Richard Prosser, Birmingham patentee and manufacturer, a friend of Bennet Woodcroft the first Commissioner of Patents, and father of Richard Bissel Prosser, Patent Office Librarian; but discarded by that body to the Newcomen Society ca. 1960, where they were seen by the author).
- JHL, XVI, 407a, 429b, 431b, 434b, 450a, 465b; JHC, XII, 635, 641, 650, 664; Historical MSS Commission, MSS of the House of Lords, NS III for 1697–99 (1905), p. 384 (per Mr. Alan Smith). The Act was printed in 1861, from the original MS now in the House of Lords RO, by the Commissioners of Patents, as a supplement to the patent. 'Mr. Lowther' is the future Sir James Lowther, 4th. baronet (?1673–1755), who introduced the Newcomen engine into his Whitehaven, Cumberland collieries from 1715 (see TNS, XLV (1972–3), 49 (1977–8), 51 (1979–80), p. 18; John V. Beckett, Coal and tobacco, Cambridge: UP, 1981). If Lowther attended the demonstration, this confirms beyond doubt that when he went to see a demonstration in 1712 it must have been of Newcomen's engine (see John S. Allen, in TNS, XLV (1972–3), p. 241).
- Phil. trans., XXI (January-December 1699), London, 1700, No. 253 for June 1699, London, 1699, p. 228 and plate. The number was published before November 1699, the volume in May 1700 (Edward Arber, Term catalogues, III, London, 1906 ,pp. 159, 188). The original drawing for the plate, at the Royal Society, is well reproduced in Henry Winram Dickinson, Short history of the steam engine, Cambridge, 1939, opp. p. 22. The unsigned engraving is a fairly literal reversed copy of it, except that the handles of the two cocks (FF in the text) to stop the return of the water already in the forcing main when the two valves EE below them are to be cleaned, have each become a pair of very odd little circles. Also, the engraving has scrambled the plumbing of the four suction and force pipes as shown in the shaky perspective view; hence this piping has become meaningless in the two re-engravings (note 12). It can still be understood by reference to the main view in the Phil. trans. version, but this bit is missing from the now damaged original.
- I take it to read: Account of Mr. Thomas Savery's engine for raising water by the help of fire (Phil. trans.).
- Erasmus Andresohn (1651–1731), copperplate engraver and writing-master of Leipzig. He made most of the engravings for the Acta eruditorum throughout its life (1682–1728), and for 1682–5 exclusively (Ulrich Thieme and Felix Becker, All-gemeines Lexikon der bildenden Kiinstler, I, Leipzig, 1907). The part was published well before June 1702 (Edward Arber, op. cit., (10), III, p. 310). This made knowledge of the pump by the Continental savants possible. But it was evidently missed by both Denys Papin and Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz. When Savery tried to introduce his pump into Hanover in 1704–5, Leibniz at Hanover sent Papin at Kassel, on S January 1705, a 'figure printed at London' of it, for his opinion. And Papin, who from April to November 1698 at Kassel had himself experimented with a steam displacement pump, in his enthusiastic reply of 15 January 1705, explaining the drawing lucidly, made no allusion to that in the Acta; and nor did his earlier letters (Denys Papin, Nouvelle manière pour lever l'eau par la force du feu, Kassel, 1707, p. 7; Papin-Leibniz transcripts (note 8), especially 10/20 April 1698 and 15 January 1705). The figure must be that in the Miners friend (1702), the copperplate of which was re-used in a 1704 reprint, and in John Harris, Lexicon technicum, London 1704 (and in its later editions, becoming progressively worn). Doubtless Savery had given a copy of it to the Hanoverian minister in London. Much later, the Acta plate was itself carefully re-engraved full size, and the text reprinted, in selections from the journal, Opuscula omnia Actis Eruditorum Lipsiensibus inserta, III, 1694–1700, Venice, 1742, p. 475 and plate I for 1700.
- Savery, Miners friend, dedication to William III; Nicolson's diary (see note 28 below).
- Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland, X (1823), pp. 267–68; Howard M. Colvin, Biographical dictionary of British architects. . ., London, 1978. There is no indication that he ever contested the right of the London-based proprietors of Savery's monopoly to erect Newcomen engines in Scotland (though at one time a coal-owner himself). Rhys Jenkins drew attention to the Scottish patent both in his 1913 article and in a letter published in The Engineer, 11 July 1913, p. 116.
- The stock was raised to work the one mine, but in ca. 1700 the company leased other mines in the area, which were said to have more silver. These included the Cwmsymlog (Cwmsumblock) silver mine, which had been farmed so profitably from the Mines Royal before the Civil War by Sir Hugh Myddelton and Thomas Bushell. However, apparently as late as February 1701/02 (Flying Post, no. 1056, February 10–12, 1702), the company took a long renewal of their original lease, and the activities of 1700–01 refer solely to the Escair Ifir mine. It remained important when, in 1704–5, they were working about five mines.
- [William Shiers], A familiar discourse or dialogue concerning the Mine Adventure, London, printed in the year 1700, pp. 49–50, 85. The reasonable attribution is the British Museum's catalogue. Of the Middle Temple, gentleman, 'Shiers was a shareholder from at least May 1700, became the company's secretary between January 1699/1700 and June 1704, and was still so in July 1709 (share certificate signed by him in C 110/146 pt. 2). The mine office was in Angel Court, Snow Hill.
- For the company, see BM cat., 'COMPANY OF THE MINE ADVENTURERS', and the London press from mid-February 1701/02. An account of it is in William Rees, Industry before the Industrial Revolution, II, Cardiff, 1968, pp. 526–67. For the mines generally, see Samuel Rush Meyrick, History . . . of Cardigan, London, 1810, around pp. ccxvi-ccxxxviii.
- As note 17.
- BM Add. MS 32504, if. 47 v–49v.
- The four automatic pump clacks or valves, as opposed to the two manual socketed steam cocks.
- North does not say where he saw it, but Switzer, 1729, says he heard it from Savery 'that the very first Time he play'd, it was in a Potter's House at Lambeth, where tho' it was a small Engine, yet it forc'd its Way thro' the Roof, and struck up the Tiles in a Manner that surpris'd all the Spectators.' Switzer had been well acquainted with 'the ingenious Captain Savery . . ., then a most noted Engineer' (Stephen Switzer, Introduction to . . . hydrostaticks and hydraulicks, II, London, 1729, pp. 325–6).
- Savery, Miners friend, p. 2, dedication to English mine undertakers.
- John Theophilus Desaguliers, Course of experimental philosophy, II, London, 1744, pp. 465–6.
- For the Marquis of Worcester, see Appendix I. For Desaguliers, see, e.g., DNB; Nicholas Hans, New trends in education in the 18th century, London, 1951, p. 140; Louis E. Arcere, Histoire de la ville de la Rochelle, II, La Rochelle, 1757, pp. 426–9, 712. Denys Papin, defending the independence of his own invention, observed, 'I do not doubt at all that he [Saver)] hit on this idea, as others did, without having got it from elsewhere,' citing as two examples both himself and Leibniz in 1698 (Nouvelle maniere . . (1707), P. 7). There is a world of difference between Papin and Savery. Papin was one of the most resourceful experimental physicists of the latter 17th-early 18th centuries, and his contemporaries recognised this, but he totally lacked business acumen. Savery was of minor scientific consequence, and is of largely retrospective interest; but he had the ability to pursue a few inventions over a long period, and is a typical innovator-entrepreneur of his time. So is Newcomen, a man of no scientific account whatsoever, whose own reduction of this new technology to practice was successful.
- Angliae tutamen: or, the Safety of England. . ., London: sold by John Whitlock, 1695, P. 29.
- As note 22.
- DNB.
- 'Bishop's Nicolson's diaries,' Transactions of the Cumberland and Westmorland Antiquarian and Archaeo-logical Society, NS I, Kendal, 1901, p. 42.
- Bibliotheca annua . . . for. . . 1701, no. 3, London: J. Nutt, n.d., reprinted Gregg: London, 1964, p. 35. An expensive, high quality hardback photo-litho reprint of the 1702 edition of the Miners friend, in a slip case, was published in an edition of 300 copies by Antiquarian Facsimiles, 32 Danube Street, Edinburgh 4, in 1979. The plate and text are scaled at exactly 1:1 with the original. The reprint differs from the BM's two originals only by an added half-title in a suitably antique type face, reprint details, an ISBN number, and cropped margins. The copyright copy is no. 207, and was accessioned by the British Library on 6 October 1981.
- DNB.
- DNB.
- Henry R. Plomer, Dictionary of the printers and booksellers. . . from 1668 to 1725, ed. Arundell Esdaile, Oxford: UP for the Bibliographical Society, 1922.
- DNB; Post Boy, No. 1077, 9–11 April 1702.
- a. Previously published in Notes and Queries, 9 Ser. LXIV (27 January 1900).
- Post Man checked from No. 926, 22–24 January 1702 (NS) to No. 971, 21–23 May 1702 inclusive; Post Boy from No. 1048, 31 January-3 February 1701 (/2) to No. 1090, 9–12 May 1702 inclusive (both Burney 118b—microfilm). A precedent for such a demonstration was that by John Yarnold, a plumber who set up as a rival to George Sorocold for town water supplies. The London Gazette, No. 3581, 4–7 March 1699/1700, advertises a patent (No. 355, 19 March 1698) to John Yarnold, gentleman, for an engine to raise up to 120 tuns of water/h through 300 ft (90 m), for mines and for watering high places. 'The Engine may be seen at the Engine-house in Prescot-street in Goodman's Fields, and the Operation perform'd on Wednesdays and Fridays, from 8 to 12 in the morning; and the said Mr. Yarnold will be every day at Batson's Coffee-house in Cornhill, from 2 to 3 in the afternoon.' Repeated in No. 3586. Its claimed water H.P. of ca. 40 is huge, probably specious, and of course bears no relation to that of the doubtless manual demonstration engine.
- Guildhall MS 6613/1, under Salisbury Court, assessment made 13 1670, no regnal year but most probably 1670/71.
- Guildhall MS 11316/9, Farringdon Ward Without, in vol. 2.
- Marriage tax, 1695 (indexes, Guildhall counter).
- Corporation of London RO, MS 71.15, poll-tax August 1698.
- Guildhall MS 11316/14, City of London land tax books, Farringdon Ward Without, St. Bride's parish, Salisbury Court Precinct, p. 14.
- Guildhall MS 11316/17 (as note 39).
- Guildhall MS 11316/20 (as note 39).
- Official copy of commission in ADM 6/8, if. 182–3. And a certificate confirming it, in T.I.95, no. 13, dated 12 1705. (Both by courtesy of Mr. Alan Smith, Member.).
- Guildhall MS 3435/1, St. Bride's Fleet Street rate books, 1707–10. Savery is nowhere in the parish; nor is he in the vestry minutes.
- Guildhall, M.S. class 11316, the City land tax books.
- Sydney Perks, Water line of the City of London after the Great Fire, London, 1935; or, Thomas F. Reddaway, Rebuilding of London after the Great Fire, London, 1940, opp. p. 232.
- In the Sackville (Knole) MSS, Kent County Archives Office, Maidstone, reproduced in the University of Pittsburgh's Theatre survey, XIII no. 2, November 1972, p. 142.
- Thomas F. Reddaway, op. cit. (45), opp. p. 80. The Gentleman's magazine, July 1814, opp. p. 9, has a striking view, engraved from a (now lost) original, of the theatre's waterside front in its last years. The waterline to the right is so compressed that the turretted riverside building on the canalised Fleet Ditch abuts on to the theatre, eliminating what is between them (compare with Fig. 5). I therefore doubt the veracity of the huddled buildings to the theatre's immediate left.
- As first reference of Appendix IV.
- Dedication to the Royal Society.
- John Farey jr., Treatise on the steam engine, II, David & Charles, 1971, P. 10; Report from the select committee on steamboats, &c, 1817, p. 15 (Reports Committees, 1817 VI, MS p. 237) (John Taylor's evidence).
- John T. Desaguliers, op. cit. (23), 11 (1744), p. 466, who concludes:
- Miners friend, pp. 35, 63.
- In the Mansion House front hall hangs a sriking painting (Guildhall Art Gallery collection), assigned to the early 18th century, of the mouth of the Fleet drawn wide to resemble a Venetian canal. The arched footbridge over it was probably never so Italianate. Extreme left, the threatre has gone, and stacked wood 'pallets' and stacked logs line the river, against a background of Salisbury Court precinct houses.
- Rhys Jenkins, Collected papers (1936), using BM Add. MS 32504, if. 45v-46r. Its substance and illustration is in L. T. C. Rolt and John S. Allen, The steam engine of Thomas Newcomen (1977), pp. 18–19; and in H. W. Dickinson, Sir Samuel Morland . . . (Newcomen Society, 1970).
- DNB. None of the Norths was an F.R.S. It does not seem to me that Roger North had seen the Phil. Trans. engraving.
- SP 44/66, f. 181.
- John Farey jr., Treatise on the steam engine, I, London, 1827, reprinted David & Charles, 1971, p. 105.
- John Farey jr., Treatise on the steam engine, I, London, 1827, reprinted David & Charles, 1971, p. 105.