Thomas Newcomen

Thomas Newcomen (1663-1729), English engineer, one of the inventors of the steam-engine, was born at Dartmouth in 1663. While employed as an ironmonger in his native town, he corresponded with Robert Hooke about the previous investigations of Denis Papin and the marquis of Worcester as to the applicability of steam-power for the purpose of driving machinery, and in conjunction with John Calley (or Cawley), said to have been a grazier or glazier in Dartmouth, and Captain Thomas Savery (1650 ?-1715), a military engineer, he constructed in 1705 a "fire-engine," now known as the "atmospheric steam-engine." He died in 1729, probably in London. (See STEAM-ENGINE.)