RICHARD TREVITHICK: ‘FATHER OF STEAM’

Water has always been the enemy of the Cornish miner. Shallow workings could be drained by sloping adits, but if the water was below adit level, it had to be pumped, which led to ground-breaking technical advances in high-pressure steam pumping. At the forefront of these innovations was Cornishman Richard Trevithick, 1771-1833, son of a mine manager, whose pioneering uses of high-pressure steam resulted in the world’s first full-scale, successful steam vehicle, the Puffin’ Devil, and the development of the Cornish pumping engine: a form of beam engine, which would be adopted in mines throughout the world. Despite his achievements, fame and fortune eluded Trevithick. He died in poverty and relative obscurity. For a long time, his work was overshadowed by his contemporaries, such as Robert Stephenson and James Watt.