Savery

In 1698, Thomas Savery invented and patented the first commercially used what, crucial to the industrial revolution?

In 1698 Thomas Savery invented and patented the first commercially used what, crucial to the industrial revolution?

Yet the first practical application of 'steam power' came in 1698 when Thomas Savery invented a steam pump for pumping water out of mines.

Lord Edward Herbert invented the working steam engine, his designs being copied 50 years later by Thomas Savery. David Hughes' telegraph was internationally used until the 1930s, and his microphone is the forerunner of all the carbon microphones now in use.

Somerset never made a penny out of his machine, but the idea was again taken up more than half a century later by Thomas Savery, who probably read about it in Somerset''s 1655 book, and is usually credited with being the inventor of the steam engine.

Another Devonian, Thomas Savery, had developed a steam engine that worked to a point, but it could raise water only to a height of around 8 metres.

This event was the awarding by the Royal Society of a patent in 1698 to Thomas Savery for the first engine to continuously convert the heat from fire into useful work.