Savery, Thomas

Savery, Thomas, c.1650–1715, English engineer. He became a military engineer, rising to the rank of captain by 1702. He spent his free time performing experiments in mechanics, inventing such devices as a machine for polishing plate glass and a contrivance employing paddle wheels to move becalmed ships. His most important invention, patented in 1698, was a machine designed to lift water for such purposes as keeping mines dry and supplying towns with water. Although not a steam engine in the modern sense, this machine was the first to provide mechanical power by harnessing steam.

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Savery, Thomas 

Born circa 1650, in Shilstone, near Mod-bury, Devonshire; died May 1715 in London. English mechanical engineer.

Savery was the first to use steam power in technology. In 1698 he obtained a British patent on a steam-chamber vacuum-suction pump that had a small delivery and could not raise water to any great height. In 1707 a Savery pump was ordered by Peter I and installed in the Summer Garden in St. Petersburg to supply water to a fountain.

REFERENCE

Konfederatov, I. Ia. Istoriia teploenergetiki: Nachal’nyi period (17–18 vv). Moscow-Leningrad, 1954.