9. Getting to grips with steam power, and changing the world
What came first, the steam or the steam engine? Of course, what I am saying is that without a means of generating steam, and an understanding of atmospheric pressure, the whole chain of events that saw the first successful rotation of a steam piston would never have come about. In fact the first use of steam as a power source, or as a means to provoke movement, predates ‘Newcomen Atmospheric Engine’ by millennia. It was only with Thomas Newcomen’s steam piston engine, test run in 1712, that a viable power source for industrial use was on the table.
It was that moment that witnessed the commencement of the Industrial Revolution, probably the original Great Leap Forward. Suddenly accumulated technologies from ages passed were revitalized, revisited and re-evaluated. Initially, these engines were used only to pump water out of mines, and hundreds were built as stand-alone machines in the early decades of the eighteenth century. The design was improved upon by the Scottish engineer and inventor James Watts, and it was this that in the end provided the efficiency and standardization necessary to develop industrial production.
Within a few generations, commercial sail was a thing of the past, and before long, cottage industry was a fringe activity. It the was the beginning of the consumer age, the wage economy and the welfare state – in fact everything we live with and love today!