Search results
An ironmonger by training, working with John Calley, a plumber and glazier, and inspired by the need for more effective pumping of the mines, he gave us the world’s first steam engine, the condensing ‘fire engine’ of 1712 from which we can trace in unbroken succession the development of the engines of today.
John Calley (also spelt Cawley) (1663 – May 1725, The Hague), [1] was a metalworker, plumber and glass-blower, [2] who became famous for being Thomas Newcomen's partner. Like Newcomen, he was a member of a Dartmouth family. He helped develop the Newcomen atmospheric engine.
The Newcomen Memorial Engine (sometimes called the Coventry Canal Engine) is a preserved beam engine in Dartmouth, Devon. It was preserved as a memorial to Thomas Newcomen (d. 1729), inventor of the beam engine, who was born in Dartmouth. The engine is the world's oldest surviving steam engine. [1]
The unprecedented innovation of the steam-atmospheric engine by Thomas Newcomen (1663-1729) of Dartmouth and his assistant John Calley stands at the beginning of the development of practical thermal prime movers in the early years of the eighteenth century.
In 1712 Newcomen and his partner John Calley produced the first working atmospheric reciprocating engine, or Newcomen steam engine, for pumping water at the Conygree Coalworks near Dudley, England. Newcomen's Dudley Castle beam engine is generally accepted as the first successful Newcomen engine.
John Calley was born on the 9th of December 1663 at Saint Savior, Dartmouth, Devon. He was a glazier in Dartmouth. Some sources state that he became ill and was buried on the 29th December 1717 while undertaking the installation of an engine at Moor Hall, Austhorpe, Leeds.
In 1712, Thomas Newcomen and his assistant John Calley built the first "Newcomen engine," or "fire engine," which employed a vacuum created by condensing steam from a pressure just above atmospheric.
