Savery Steam Pump

Timeline

1. 1698London · LondonThomas Savery, a military engineer from Devon, was granted a 14-year patent protecting his new invention of 'raising water by the impulse of fire and driving all sorts of mills', explicitly aimed at mine drainage, town water supply, and power where water and wind were unavailable. The patent text included almost no diagrams but established the earliest commercially intended rights to steam water-raising.
2. 1699Hampton Court and the Royal Society, London · EnglandAfter Savery demonstrated a prototype to William III, Parliament passed the 'Fire Engine Act' extending its protection by a further 21 years, making the patent cover virtually all devices for 'raising water by fire'. On 14 June 1699 he demonstrated it again to the Royal Society, bringing the steam pump into the public knowledge of the natural philosophy and engineering community.
3. 1700–1702Southwest England mining districts (Cornwall etc.) · CornwallIn 1702 Savery published 'The Miner's Friend, or an Engine to Raise Water by Fire', promoting the cycle of vacuum suction and steam-pressure discharge to mine owners. Because suction height was limited by atmospheric pressure, high-pressure boilers were prone to bursting, and fuel consumption was high, deep mines responded coolly; the device was used more for shallow drainage and manor water supply, but it wrote 'replacing animal power with fire to raise water' into the engineering agenda, directly constituting the patent environment the Newcomen engine had to face.