"committee said that ""no one invention since Watt's time has so enhanced the efficiency of the steam engine"". In addition to using 30% less steam, it provided more uniform speed due to variable steam cut off, making it well suited to manufacturing, especially cotton spinning. The first experimental road going steam powered vehicles were built in the late 18th century, but it was not until after Richard Trevithick had developed the use of high-pressure steam, around 1800, that mobile steam engines became a practical proposition. The first half of the 19th century saw great progress in steam vehicle design, and"
"could be made small enough for transport applications. Thereafter, technological developments and improvements in manufacturing techniques (partly brought about by the adoption of the steam engine as a power source) resulted in the design of more efficient engines that could be smaller, faster, or more powerful, depending on the intended application. The Cornish engine was developed by Trevithick and others in the 1810s. It was a compound cycle engine that used high-pressure steam expansively, then condensed the low-pressure steam, making it relatively efficient. The Cornish engine had irregular motion and torque though the cycle, limiting it mainly to pumping. Cornish"
"Belgian and Dutch steam engineers, who all made liberal use of his designs. Arthur Woolf Arthur Woolf (1766, Camborne, Cornwall – 16 October 1837, Guernsey) was a Cornish engineer, most famous for inventing a high-pressure compound steam engine. As such he made an outstanding contribution to the development and perfection of the Cornish engine. Woolf left Cornwall in 1785 to work for Joseph Bramah's engineering works in London. He worked there and at other firms as an engineer and engine builder until 1811 experimenting with high pressure steam and a much improved boiler. Whereupon he returned to Cornwall. Michael Loam,"
"George Henry Corliss George Henry Corliss (June 2, 1817 – February 21, 1888) was an American mechanical engineer and inventor, who developed the Corliss steam engine, which was a great improvement over any other stationary steam engine of its time. The Corliss engine is widely considered one of the more notable engineering achievements of the 19th century. It provided a reliable, efficient source of industrial power, enabling the expansion of new factories to areas which did not readily possess reliable or abundant water power. Corliss gained international acclaim for his achievements during the late 19th century and is perhaps best"
"Arthur Woolf Arthur Woolf (1766, Camborne, Cornwall – 16 October 1837, Guernsey) was a Cornish engineer, most famous for inventing a high-pressure compound steam engine. As such he made an outstanding contribution to the development and perfection of the Cornish engine. Woolf left Cornwall in 1785 to work for Joseph Bramah's engineering works in London. He worked there and at other firms as an engineer and engine builder until 1811 experimenting with high pressure steam and a much improved boiler. Whereupon he returned to Cornwall. Michael Loam, inventor of the man engine, was trained by him. When he returned to"
"of the Corliss factory, is also named in his honor, as is Corliss High School in Chicago, Illinois. Corliss was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 2006. George Henry Corliss George Henry Corliss (June 2, 1817 – February 21, 1888) was an American mechanical engineer and inventor, who developed the Corliss steam engine, which was a great improvement over any other stationary steam engine of its time. The Corliss engine is widely considered one of the more notable engineering achievements of the 19th century. It provided a reliable, efficient source of industrial power, enabling the expansion of"
"Andrew Vivian Andrew Vivian (1759–1842) was an Cornish mechanical engineer, inventor, and mine captain of the Dolcoath mine in Cornwall, England. In partnership with his cousin Richard Trevithick, the inventor of the ""high pressure"" steam engine, and the entrepreneur Davis Giddy, Vivian financed the production of the first steam carriage and was granted a joint patent for high pressure engines for stationary and locomotive use in March 1802. He was born at Vellansaundry, Camborne on 30 November 1759, the second son of John Vivian and his wife Anne. By 1790, he was had set up a business selling supplies to"
"engine being used in a mill which made hoops for barrels. London Steam Carriage The London Steam Carriage was an early steam-powered road vehicle constructed by Richard Trevithick in 1803 and the world's first self-propelled passenger-carrying vehicle. Cugnot had built a steam vehicle thirty years previously, but that had been a slow-moving artillery tractor, not built to carry passengers. In 1801, after James Watt's earlier patent on ""a carriage propelled by a steam engine"" had expired, Richard Trevithick constructed an experimental steam-driven vehicle (""Puffing Devil"") at Camborne, Cornwall. It was equipped with a firebox enclosed within the boiler, with one"
"the first use of marine steam propulsion in scheduled regular passenger transport service. Oliver Evans (1755–1819) was a Philadelphian inventor born in Newport, Delaware to a family of Welsh settlers. He designed an improved high-pressure steam engine in 1801 but did not build it (patented 1804). The Philadelphia Board of Health was concerned with the problem of dredging and cleaning the city's dockyards, and in 1805 Evans convinced them to contract with him for a steam-powered dredge, which he called the ""Oruktor Amphibolos"". It was built but was only marginally successful. Evans's high-pressure steam engine had a much higher power"
"London Steam Carriage The London Steam Carriage was an early steam-powered road vehicle constructed by Richard Trevithick in 1803 and the world's first self-propelled passenger-carrying vehicle. Cugnot had built a steam vehicle thirty years previously, but that had been a slow-moving artillery tractor, not built to carry passengers. In 1801, after James Watt's earlier patent on ""a carriage propelled by a steam engine"" had expired, Richard Trevithick constructed an experimental steam-driven vehicle (""Puffing Devil"") at Camborne, Cornwall. It was equipped with a firebox enclosed within the boiler, with one vertical cylinder, the motion of the single piston being transmitted directly"
"Richard Trevithick Richard Trevithick (13 April 1771 – 22 April 1833) was a British inventor and mining engineer from Cornwall, England. The son of a mining captain, and born in the mining heartland of Cornwall, Trevithick was immersed in mining and engineering from an early age. He performed poorly in school, but went on to be an early pioneer of steam-powered road and rail transport. His most significant contribution was the development of the first high-pressure steam engine. He also built the first full-scale working railway steam locomotive. The world's first locomotive-hauled railway journey took place on 21 February 1804,"
"who creating the Puffing devil for transporting passengers by road in 1801, and later rail transport, initially for coal (1804) and then for people (Trevethick 1808, George Stephenson 1824 onwards). By the 1830s steam began to be more widely adopted for transportation, with steam carriages for road (e.g. the 1827 Goldsworthy Gurney Steam bus) and for rail, although the latter quickly became more established for medium and longer distance travel. Mechanically powered road vehicles were largely limited to utilitarian vehicles such as traction engines during this period (especially 1850s onwards, see History of steam road vehicles). During the 1860s diverse"
"Cornish engine A Cornish engine is a type of steam engine developed in Cornwall, England, mainly for pumping water from a mine. It is a form of beam engine that uses steam at a higher pressure than the earlier engines designed by James Watt. The engines were also used for powering man engines to assist the underground miners' journeys to and from their working levels, for winching materials into and out of the mine, and for powering on-site ore stamping machinery. Cornwall has long had tin, copper and other metal ore mines, but if mining is to take place at"
"Cornwall, where he lived with his devoted Anna Jane, ultimately passing away on 28 February 1875. He is buried at Launcells parish church. In the period 1825–9, Gurney designed and built a number of steam-powered road vehicles which were intended to commercialise a steam road transport business—the Gurney Steam Carriage Company. His vehicles were built at his Regent's Park Manufactory works, and tested around the park's barrack yard, and on frequent excursions to Hampstead, Highgate, Edgware, Barnet and Stanmore, at speeds of up to 20 miles per hour (32 km/h). Gurney is by no means the only pioneering inventor in"
"daughters, Rosamund (1789) and Elizabeth (1790). He died on 23 February 1815 and is buried in St Gluvias Churchyard. He invented the compound steam engine in 1781 and patented it on 16 July in the same year. This type of engine has two cylinders instead of old single-cylinder engine, it contains a high-pressure and a low-pressure steam cylinder. The principle is that the steam first expands in the high-pressure cylinder and afterwards expands again in the low-pressure cylinder. Even though this was a revolutionary new steam technology, he was unfortunately prevented from pursuing his invention by litigation with James Watt"
"FELTON’s carriage works was close to this spot. In 1803 he built a carriage powered by a steam engine designed and supplied by Richard TREVITHICK, the great Cornish engineer. The carriage made several trips from here with up to about 8 passengers. In July of that year, one trip was made via Greys Inn Lane, Dorset Square and Tottenham Court Road to Paddington, returning the same day via Islington. This was the first self-powered vehicle to run in the streets of London and the world’s first self-powered road people carrier. The London Steam Carriage heralded the age of the car."
"replica engine at the Black Country Museum in Dudley, West Midlands. The Newcomen Memorial Engine at Dartmouth can be seen moving, but is worked by hydraulics. On 23 February 2012 the Royal Mail released a stamp featuring Newcomen's atmospheric steam engine as part its ""Britons of Distinction"" series. Thomas Newcomen Thomas Newcomen (; February 1664 – 5 August 1729) was an English inventor who created the first practical steam engine in 1712, the Newcomen atmospheric engine. He was an ironmonger by trade and a Baptist lay preacher by calling. He was born in Dartmouth, Devon, England, to a merchant family"
"and were at first of hemispherical then cylindrical form. From 1804 onwards Trevithick produced a small two-pass or return flue boiler for semi-portable and locomotive engines. The Cornish boiler developed around 1812 by Richard Trevithick was both stronger and more efficient than the simple boilers which preceded it. It consisted of a cylindrical water tank around long and in diameter, and had a coal fire grate placed at one end of a single cylindrical tube about three feet wide which passed longitudinally inside the tank. The fire was tended from one end and the hot gases from it travelled along"
"magnitude of the continual heating and cooling of a single-expansion steam engine that leads to inefficiency was invented in 1804 by British engineer Arthur Woolf. Woolf patented his stationary ""Woolf high-pressure compound engine"" in 1805. The first design of a compound railway locomotive on record belongs to Thomas Craddock, who patented a design for a condensing compound locomotive in 1846. In 1850 United Kingdom patent number 13029 was awarded to James Samuel, the engineer of the Eastern Counties Railway, for a ""continuous expansion locomotive"", a method of steam locomotive compounding, although the idea appears to have come from one John"
"and improving efficiency. These types were installed in the Boulton and Watt pumping engines at Dolcoath and more than doubled their efficiency. Again in 1812, he installed a new 'high-pressure' experimental condensing steam engine at Wheal Prosper. This became known as the Cornish engine, and was the most efficient in the world at that time. Other Cornish engineers contributed to its development but Trevithick's work was predominant. In the same year he installed another high-pressure engine, though non-condensing, in a threshing machine on a farm at Probus, Cornwall. It was very successful and proved to be cheaper to run than"
"on some but by no means all steam locomotives starting from the 1850s, particularly but not only in continental Europe. Three stage or triple expansion reciprocating steam engines, with three cylinders of increasing bore in line, were particularly popular for steamship propulsion. ""Doctor"" Alexander Carnegie Kirk, experimentally fitted his first triple expansion engine to a ship called ""Propontis"" in 1874. In 1881, Kirk installed a refined version of his engine in SS ""Aberdeen"" on Clydeside, Scotland. This ship proved the advantages of power and economy of the new engine, in commercial service between the United Kingdom and the Far East."
"Corliss steam engine A Corliss steam engine (or Corliss engine) is a steam engine, fitted with rotary valves and with variable valve timing patented in 1849, invented by and named after the American engineer George Henry Corliss of Providence, Rhode Island. Engines fitted with Corliss valve gear offered the best thermal efficiency of any type of stationary steam engine until the refinement of the uniflow steam engine and steam turbine in the 20th century. Corliss engines were generally about 30 percent more fuel efficient than conventional steam engines with fixed cutoff. This increased efficiency made steam power more economical than"
"Thomas Newcomen Thomas Newcomen (; February 1664 – 5 August 1729) was an English inventor who created the first practical steam engine in 1712, the Newcomen atmospheric engine. He was an ironmonger by trade and a Baptist lay preacher by calling. He was born in Dartmouth, Devon, England, to a merchant family and baptised at St. Saviour's Church on 28 February 1664. In those days flooding in coal and tin mines was a major problem, and Newcomen was soon engaged in trying to improve ways to pump out the water from such mines. His ironmonger's business specialised in designing, manufacturing"
"steam and were invented in 1815 by the Cornish engineer Richard Trevithick (who also invented the first steamroad locomotive). The Copper Mine is a protected site and tourist attraction. However, it is in a perilous state, and sits in a position which is particularly exposed to hurricanes. The Copper Mine Committee, in cooperation with the National Parks Trust of the British Virgin Islands, has undertaken to reconstruct the site using the footprint of the buildings and plans developed by archaeologists familiar with the work of these Cornish miners and their engineers. However, such plans have not been implemented. Notwithstanding the"
"in 1878 of gastric fever. Chauncy had evidently been very popular with his fellow officers, contractors and workman who erected a befitting monument to his honour at Goulburn Cemetery. William Snell Chauncy William Snell Chauncy (11 August 1820 – 3 July 1878) was an English civil engineer responsible for a number of important engineering works including the first steam railway opened in Australia. William Snell Chauncy was born in Addlestone, Chertsey, Surrey, England in 1820. He married Anna Cox at St Michael & All Angels church, Sunninghill, Berkshire on 7 July 1840. Chauncy initially worked with architect and surveyor, William"
"Herbert Akroyd Stuart Herbert Akroyd-Stuart (28 January 1864, Halifax, Yorkshire, England – 19 February 1927, Halifax) was an English inventor who is noted for his invention of the hot bulb engine, or heavy oil engine. Akroyd-Stuart had lived in Australia in his early years. He was educated at Newbury Grammar School (now St. Bartholomew's School) and Finsbury Technical College on Cowper Street. He was the son of Charles Stuart, founder of the Bletchley Iron and Tinplate Works, and joined his father in the business in 1887. In 1885, Akroyd Stuart accidentally spilt paraffin oil (kerosene) into a pot of molten"
"The last major improvement to the steam engine was the Corliss engine. Named after its inventor, George Henry Corliss, this stationary steam engine was introduced to the world in 1849. The engine boasted a number of desired features, including fuel efficiency (lowering cost of fuel by a third or more), low maintenance costs, 30% higher rate of power production, high thermal efficiency, and the ability to operate under light, heavy, or varying loads while maintaining high velocity and constant speed. While the engine was loosely based on existing steam engines keeping the simple piston-flywheel design, the majority of these features"
"judge of the Court of Common Pleas of Essex County. In 1807, he moved to Belfast, Maine, and was judge of the county court of Hancock County that year. He was instrumental in establishing Belfast Academy and served as trustee for forty years. He died near Belfast; interment was in Grove Cemetery, Belfast. Nathan Read Nathan Read (July 2, 1759 – January 20, 1849) was an American engineer and steam pioneer. Nathan Read was the true inventor of the high-pressure steam engine in 1789, this was twelve years before the steam-engine was known to be used in the form of"
"for traction and industrial uses. Steam turbines ran at higher speed than reciprocating engines, not being limited by the allowable speed of a piston in a cylinder. This made them more compatible with AC generators with only two or four poles; no gearbox or belted speed increaser was needed between the engine and the generator. It was costly and ultimately impossible to provide a belt-drive between a low-speed engine and a high-speed generator in the very large ratings required for central station service. The modern steam turbine was invented in 1884 by the British Sir Charles Parsons, whose first model"
"Englishman Matthew Boulton, he had succeeded by 1778 in perfecting his steam engine, which incorporated a series of radical improvements, notably the closing off of the upper part of the cylinder, thereby making the low-pressure steam drive the top of the piston instead of the atmosphere, use of a steam jacket and the celebrated separate steam condenser chamber. The separate condenser did away with the cooling water that had been injected directly into the cylinder, which cooled the cylinder and wasted steam. Likewise, the steam jacket kept steam from condensing in the cylinder, also improving efficiency. These improvements increased engine"
"also built by William Jessop. It was the first line in Scotland to carry passengers. The line began life as a gauge waggonway and at first it was operated by horses, but in 1817 locomotive haulage was trialled, using one of Stephenson's locomotives. This was the first use of a steam locomotive in Scotland. The first steam railway locomotive was introduced by Richard Trevithick in 1804. He was the first engineer to build a successful high-pressure stationary steam engine, in 1799. He followed this with a road going steam carriage in 1801. Although that experiment ended in failure, in 1802"
"on the wall of the University College building, an elaborate wall plaque carries the legend: ""Close to this place Richard Trevithick (Born 1771 – Died 1833) Pioneer of High Pressure Steam ran in the year 1808 the first steam locomotive to draw passengers."" It was erected by ""The Trevithick Centenary Memorial Committee"". One of the oldest depictions of Saint Piran's Flag can be seen in a stained glass window at Westminster Abbey, 1888, commemorating Richard Trevithick. The window depicts St Michael at the top and nine Cornish saints, Piran, Petroc, Pinnock, Germanus, Julian, Cyriacus, Constantine, Nonna and Geraint in tiers"
"20th century. The first steam locomotive, made by Richard Trevithick, first operated on 21 February 1804, three years after the road locomotive he made in 1801. The first commercially successful steam locomotive was created in 1812–13 by John Blenkinsop. Built by George Stephenson and his son Robert's company Robert Stephenson and Company, the ""Locomotion"" No. 1 is the first steam locomotive to carry passengers on a public rail line, the Stockton and Darlington Railway in 1825. George also built the first public inter-city railway line in the world to use locomotives, the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, which opened in 1830."