The Importance of Steam Power during the Nineteenth Century

During the nineteenth century the steam engine developed from the Watt beam engine producing, in most cases, less than 100 hp to the horizontal compound or multiple expansion engine producing 2,500 hp in some textile mills. Up to 1800, Boulton and Watt had built fewer than 500 reciprocating pumping engines and rotative engines of all types, with an estimated total horsepower of 7,500. In addition, there were many Newcomen atmospheric engines pumping water from coal mines. Soon after 1830 the steam engine (Figure 1) became the predominant source of industrial power of England and Wales, having outstripped the combined totals of horsepower in wind and watermills and Kanefsky estimated that, by 1907, total steam engine horsepower was 9,659,000. The rise of the steam engine to this pre-eminence was swift. The impact upon people was dramatic because they recognised that here was a reliable source of power, available virtually whenever and wherever it was needed. The windmills used for draining the Fens were called ‘Gentle Spectators’ because so often the wind failed when they were most needed to pump out the water and the farmers watched the flood waters rising across their lands. On the other hand, two plaques on steam engines erected for draining the Fens emphasised the reliability and power of steam. The earlier, of 1830, on the Hundred Foot engine of the Littleport and Downham District reads: