Getting all steamed up

The whole reason early explorers trotted across to the New World was money. It made them rich. The Dutch were particularly adept at cottoning onto this and many expeditions were sponsored to achieve just this. Men who had the money, bought the ships, had them kitted out and crewed. Off they went, and if they came back, you got richer. If they didn’t come back, you lost out. It was the beginning of a Price Revolution which led to a high level of gold and silver coming back to Europe, and resulting in inflation rates of around a six-fold increase in just 150 years. But it was the little island to the north, that led to the really really big next step, the one that started making the modern world.

In England, there was a fundamental problem. Lots of people lived in cities, because they were the major trading centres. Everything was available there. But nothing was really made there – if you wanted to be in the manufacturing industry, you had to live far away up in the hills. Why? Because the main source of power for industry was simply water wheels. Whatever you wanted to do – make flour, beer, textiles – any raw material, if you wanted to make it in any sort of economic bulk, you had to have some sort of basic system to produce the energy you needed. The fantastic demand for all this raw material in the cities led to the establishment of canals all over England. At least things could now get from where they were made to where they were needed much more quickly and efficiently. But this wasn’t really enough – more goods simply led to more demand.

So they turned to drink – whisky. After the the Treaty of Union was agreed upon in 1707, England, Wales and Scotland merged into what we now call the United Kingdom. Favouring the Scots was the nice hilly country side – they had plenty of raw power in the form of streams and rivers to produce goods, but were desperate to cash in on everything happening further south. One of the biggest industries happening in Scotland at the time was distillation – making scotch whisky. And the fact that the Treaty of Union led to a heavy taxation on the stuff meant that all that was wanted was someone to be able to make whisky making cheaper. A bit of science was braught to the party, in the form of a Scottish medical man called Joseph Black.

Although almost unheard of, he sat down and actually did the maths behind how much energy was needed to boil water into steam, and condense it back again. Or the same thing from ice to water and back again. Or vice versa. And as such, he discovered a brand new concept called latent heat. Impressive, and he satisfied all the distillers, but not hugely significant. Funnily enough, it was the young bloke who made the instruments Black needed, and kept them calibrated that made the change that everyone so badly needed. His name was James Watt.

Watt wasn’t the first person to think of a steam engine. That title probably goes to a Greek mathematician called Hero around the first century AD. Its possible that he designed a boat powered by steam (much like the one used in Terry Pratchett’s book Small Gods), but its not known weather it was ever built and quite unlikely that it would have worked effectively. The first person to use the effect of boiling water making steam, and its possibility for generating power to any degree of success was Tomas Newcomen, an Ironmonger and Baptist preacher who lived in Devon, England. His engine was used fairly successfully to pump water out of mine shafts.

Watt’s contribution was, however, significant. He made a separate condenser, improving the steam engines efficiency so much that it now used 75% less coal. In 1777, a man called John Wilkinson (of Ironbridge Gorge fame) invented a machine designed to drill smooth barrels in canons. This meant that cannon balls would have a snugger fit – the cannons were more accurate and more powerful. But Watt was able to use this over-sized drill to make highly efficient pistons, and turn the steam engines power into rotary motion.

Steam engines could now drive anything. Weather you had a factory for weaving cloth, or a mine full of coal (which was then used to power steam engines…) Watt’s engine could make it better. There was no longer a need to have industry up in the hills, far away from all the people. Production could happen in cities, where labour was available, and markets for goods were rampant. This drove costs down, and people were able to buy exotic goods from faraway places that they had never been to before – like the next county.

The industrial revolution really did change the world. It is perhaps the most significant phase of change, between what mankind was before, to what mankind is now. It now just remains to be seen if and when our modern society all boils over.