Newcomen, << noo KUHM uhn, >> Thomas (1663-1729), an English inventor, built the first commercially successful steam engine in 1712. His steam engine was used widely in Europe and throughout Britain’s coal-mining regions to remove water from mines. It remained popular for over 60 years until the Scottish engineer James Watt developed a greatly improved steam engine.
Newcomen was born in Dartmouth. While selling metal tools, he learned of the difficulty of pumping water from tin mines. He developed an engine that was driven by air pressure. Water was injected into a large metal cylinder filled with steam, condensing the steam and creating a vacuum. The weight of the atmosphere then pushed a piston to the bottom of the cylinder, pulling up the pumps connected to the piston and raising water. To sell his engines, Newcomen formed a partnership with inventor Thomas Savery, who had a patent on a different device that raised water from mines. Newcomen engines could pump over 31/2 million gallons (13.2 million liters) of water a day. Newcomen died on Aug. 5, 1729.
