Newcomen Steam Festival-Thomas Newcomen

About this event

Thomas Newcomen’s great-grandfather was a Cambridge don and contemporary of Francis Bacon who brought modern education to Dartmouth, and the Newcomen family’s Nonconformist convictions often put them at odds with the town’s politics. Tutored near Kingsbridge, where he met his future wife Hannah, Thomas inherited properties in Dartmouth and Kingswear and later acquired others in Bovey Tracey and Ilsington. He worked first as a hook-maker trading to Newfoundland, then as an ironmonger linking the Severn Valley, London, and the Devon and Cornwall mines, drawing on his Baptist network for both trade and an introduction to the experimental philosophy circle around Robert Boyle. In Cornwall he encountered the problem of mine drainage and, with the plumber and glazier John Calley, set out to solve it. As his “Fire Engine” grew into a major enterprise, keeping Thomas away on long business travels, Hannah’s capable management let the family’s ironmonger and apothecary business thrive, giving Newcomen the freedom to change the world. Speaker James Greener is an authority on the life and work of Thomas Newcomen and is changing the way we think about him. He combines an international career in automotive technology and renewable energy with a long-standing passion for the history of steam power. Based in China, he advises the automotive industry on battery technology while researching Thomas Newcomen’s life and legacy.