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Part of The Newcomen Steam Festival

4 illustrated talks in the Flavel Centre – all about the invention of steam power and its application in Dartmouth and on the River Dart.

10:30 – 11.30am

Brunel’s Atmospheric Caper

Brunel’s Atmospheric Caper follows Isambard Kingdom Brunel as he backs one of the strangest railways ever built along the South Devon coast from Exeter to Newton Abbot and on to Plymouth. Instead of locomotives, trains were hauled by a hidden vacuum based power system in a continuous pipe beside the line, celebrated as the future of high speed travel. Contemporary reports praised its smooth running, yet within months the experiment was quietly abandoned. Was the problem leaky valves, bad specifications, hostile directors, collapsing railway finances – or really rats eating the tallow that sealed the vacuum?  The talk pieces together the evidence but lets the audience weigh the myths for themselves. Along the way, it opens a window on mid Victorian technology, boardroom politics and the cult of the “hero engineer”, asking what this bold failure reveals about Brunel’s genius – and his blind spots.

Jonathan Turner is Vice Chair and Trustee of Dartmouth Museum, Chair of the South West Maritime History Society, and a Trustee of the Flavel Arts Centre in Dartmouth.

11.30am – 12.30pm

The Engine that Changed the World

Why is Thomas Newcomen's 1712 steam engine regarded as one of the most important inventions in history? This talk explains how Newcomen and his assistant, John Calley, created the world's first successful commercial steam engine, making deep coal mining possible and laying the foundations of the Industrial Revolution.

Internationally recognised model engineer David Hulse, whose painstaking research into Newcomen's engine spans decades in collaboration with the Newcomen Society, has constructed a remarkable 1/16-scale working model of the engine. Drawing on this research, David will explain how the engine operated, why its revolutionary design changed the course of engineering, and the ingenuity required to recreate one of history's most significant machines in miniature. His collection of 8 working atmospheric steam engine models is on permanent display in the nearby Dartmouth Museum, where visitors can explore Newcomen's pioneering achievement in greater depth.

David Hulse is one of the pre-eminent model makers of our age, and his meticulously researched working models of eighteenth century atmospheric steam engines have gained international recognition.  

13:30pm – 14.30pm

Paddle Steamer Kingswear Castle

Built in 1924 Kingswear Castle ran up and down the Dart between Dartmouth and Totnes until withdrawn in 1965. After two decades laying idle she was returned to service in 1985 based at the Historic Dockyard at Chatham running trips on the Rivers Medway and Thames. During this time, she visited many piers along the way including Putney, Tower Pier London, Greenwich, Gravesend, Southend, Whitstable, Rochester, Chatham and Strood.  In 2013 she returned to the Dart on long terms charter to the Dartmouth Steam Railway and River Boat Company. She has just completed a major rebuild.

John Megoran: Noone knows more about the Kingswear Castle than John. A native of Weymouth, where paddle steamers still ran when he was a child, John returned Kingswear Castle to service in 1985.

14:30-15:30pm

Thomas Newcomen: The Dartmouth Ironmonger Who Changed the World

Thomas Newcomen's great-grandfather was a Cambridge don and contemporary of Francis Bacon who brought modern education to Dartmouth, and the Newcomen family's Nonconformist convictions often put them at odds with the town's politics. Tutored near Kingsbridge, where he met his future wife Hannah, Thomas inherited properties in Dartmouth and Kingswear and later acquired others in Bovey Tracey and Ilsington. He worked first as a hook-maker trading to Newfoundland, then as an ironmonger linking the Severn Valley, London, and the Devon and Cornwall mines, drawing on his Baptist network for both trade and an introduction to the experimental philosophy circle around Robert Boyle. In Cornwall he encountered the problem of mine drainage and, with the plumber and glazier John Calley, set out to solve it. As his “Fire Engine” grew into a major enterprise, keeping Thomas away on long business travels, Hannah's capable management let the family's ironmonger and apothecary business thrive, giving Newcomen the freedom to change the world.

James Greener is an authority on the life and work of Thomas Newcomen and is changing the way we think about him.  He combines an international career in automotive technology and renewable energy with a long-standing passion for the history of steam power.

ALL talks are free – no booking necessary however auditorium capacity is 172.

Thomas Newman Steam Festival, Dartmouth, Devon : Steam Heritage