Hide
hide
Hide

Transcript

of

M. Louis Figuier on Mr Thomas Newcomen

In Notes on Slips connected to Devonshire, Trans. Devon Assoc., 1882, Vol XIV, pp. 592-595.

by

W. Pengelly, FRS, FGS etc. (Ed.).

Prepared by Michael Steer

Thomas Newcomen; (February 1664 – 5 August 1729) was an inventor who created the atmospheric engine, the first practical fuel-burning engine in 1712. He was an ironmonger by trade and a Baptist lay preacher by calling. He was born in Dartmouth, to a merchant family and baptised at St. Saviour's Church on 28 February 1664. The article, from a copy of a rare and much sought-after journal can be downloaded from the Internet Archive. Google has sponsored the digitisation of books from several libraries. These books, on which copyright has expired, are available for free educational and research use, both as individual books and as full collections to aid researchers.

A Member of this Association has kindly sent me a "cutting" from the Era newspaper for 10th June, 1882, containing a short article on M. Louis Figuier's Denis Papin, a five-act Play, produced, a few nights before, at the Gaieté theatre, in Paris. A Slip or two in it, connected with Devonshire, have furnished an excuse for giving a part of the article a place in the present budget

It seems that, according to the Play, “Papin, who was a Protestant, having fled to London with his family after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, abandons his wife there in order to go to Germany to pursue his scientific investigations. When skimming a pot, he notices the force that lifts the lid, applies steam to a little instrument he had already constructed, and his discovery" [of the steam engine]" was made. He next sets about building a steamsMp on the Weser, which is hacked to pieces by the boatmen, who have been incited to this act of Vandalism by a harpy named Barbara. Papin returns to London, where his wife and son have died during his ten years' absence, and there, when reduced to the utmost distress, he learns that the Dartmouth locksmith, named Thomas Newcomer" [sic] "had invented an engine in which steam was employed as a motive power. Papin goes to Dartmouth and recognizes in Newcomer his own son, whom he supposed to be dead! The young man had been led to his invention by information he had found in drawings and writings his father had left behind him when he went to Germany. Papin does not make himself known, however, but allows his son to reap all the honour and reward of the discovery. In the last scene Newcomer's pump is being tried on the Thames, in the presence of the Lord Mayor and corporation … when Barbara and the Weser boatmen, having crossed the 'silver streak' for the purpose, cripple the machine by cutting some cord that prevents the valve from opening, and Papin, who has perceived this, rushes forward to avert an explosion, and falls a victim to his generous devotedness, for the boiler bursts just as he reaches it; he dies in his ‘son's arms, and Newcomen proclaims to the Lord Mayor and the world in general that all the honour of his discovery is due to his father, an announcement calculated perhaps to bring much comfort to French spectators by flattering their national vanity."

There can be no doubt that by the Newcomer of the foregoing quotation we are to understand the famous Dartmouth engineer, Newcomen or Newcomin - for his name is spelt both ways. The terminal n (in manuscript) might be easily mistaken for an r ; but whether the Slip was made by M. Figuier, or by the writer of the article in the Era, or by the printer, it is needless to enquire.

It may be not out of place to remark here that the author of the Article Steam-Engine in the Encyclopœdia Britannica (8th ed. XX. 575, 1860) made the Slip of writing "Newcomen and Cawley of Dartford," instead of Dartmouth; thus, by a stroke of the pen, giving to Kent two Devonshire Worthies.

The drama cannot, of course, be expected to conform to the verities of history, especially under the manipulation of an artist bent on flattering his countrymen. It would, however, be interesting to know how much, if anything, Papin, whom the playwright makes the father, was older than Newcomen, who, according to the same authority, was the son. It seems, unfortunately, to be impossible to settle this point. It is believed to be certain that Papin was in London, and became a fellow of the Royal Society, in 1680 (Rees's Cylo. Art Papin, xxvi., 1819) ; and that he proposed, in 1690, a scheme for producing a vacuum under a piston, - first of all by gunpowder and afterwards by steam. (Ency, Brit,, 8th ed.. Art. Steam-Engine, xx., 574) He was probably living in 1714 (Phillips's Diet. Biog. Ref., 1871), but when he died is apparently unknown. Newcomen produced in 1705 the engine which constituted the link between the steam-pumps of earlier date and the modern steam-engine (Pen. Cydo. 1842, Art. Steam-Engine, xxii 474); and he died in August, 1729. (Biblo. Cornub,, 1882, iii, 1450.) It is known that Newcomen and Papin were contemporaries, but it is not known which was bom first, or which died first.

According to M. Figuier, Newcomen was a locksmith; the late Dr. Lardner styled him a blacksmith (Steam Engine, 6th ed. 1836, p. 57); Dr. Newman, himself a resident at Dartmouth, termed him an ironmonger (Trans. Devon. Assoc, iii. 134); and it is probable they are all correct. It is generally admitted that he was a native of Dartmouth.

The following summary, copied from the Encyclopœdia Britannica (8th ed. xx. 577), will show the claims of the various builders, so to speak, of the Steam-Engine, and will show also how great a portion of the work was performed, not only by natives of Britain, but by natives of Devonshire:

"It appears that the invention of the steam-engine as a useful and permanent machine, originated with the Marquis of Worcester, that he employed high-pressure steam in close vessels pressing directly upon water contained in them, and forcing it to considerable elevations above the level of the engine. Second, Captain Savery" [born at Shilstone, near Modbury, Devon, about 1650; died in London 15th May, 1715. See Biblio. Cornub. 1878, ii 626] "created a vacuum within the vessels by means of cold water applied externally, so as to lift the water from below the level of the engine, as well as to force it above the level. Third, Papin " [a native of Blois, in France. See Lardner's Steam Engine, 6th ed. 1836, p. 40] "proposed the use of a cylinder and piston separate and distinct from but connected with the work to be done, but showed no practicable application of the proposal. Fourth, Newcomen and Cawley "(both natives of Dartmouth) "successfully embodied Papin's idea of the independent cylinder and piston connected by a beam to the pumps for raising water, and they greatly accelerated the action, and increased the efficiency of the machine by internal condensation, or the injection of cold water within the cylinder. Fifth, James Watt” Ency. Brit, 8th ed. xxi. 773 born at Greenock, 1736. See "added the separate condenser - a chamber distinct from but auxiliary to the working cylinder, in which internal condensation was effected without necessarily cooling the cylinder and wasting steam in re. heating it, which was unavoidable in Newcomen's engine. We have, then, the boiler or generator with its appendages; the cylinder or applicator, with its appendages ; and the refrigator or condenser with its appendages - the function to be discharged by the first of these being altogether the reverse of the last ; the first producing steam by heat from water, the last producing water from steam by cooling. Papin's scheme was possible but impracticable; Newcomen's system was practicable but wasteful; Watt's system was practicable, economical, and complete."

The Newcomen family seems to have been lost sight of long ago. The late Governor Holdsworth, writing to Mr. Octavian Blewitt (author of the Panorama of Torquay), on 20th Feb., 1837, said, "I wish I could give you any information about Newcomen, as I have long taken a great interest about him; but I have not been able to ascertain even the time when he died. He was a Dissenter, and where buried I cannot trace, and his family (if there" [are] "any left) have long ceased to have any connection with this place" [Dartmouth]." I have an idea that if any traces are to be obtained, it is through some family now of Plymouth, but I mnst search out before I can remember who told me that there might be a family still there who might know something of his history. I possessed myself many years since of the Pannelling of his Sitting Room, and a curious device in Plaister that was the ornament over the Chimney, in which I venture to presume he saw his kettle boiling that gave him the first idea of the motive power of steam. . . ."

A copy of the letter, from which the foregoing passage is quoted, is now in my possession, through the kindness of Mr. Blewitt. (See Trans. Devon. Assoc., 1881, xii. 138-9.)