who developed a steam engine that could drive machinery
Steam engine In 1781 Scottish engineer James Watt patented a steam engine that produced continuous rotary motion.[5] Watt's ten-horsepower engines enabled a wide range of manufacturing machinery to be powered. The engines could be sited anywhere that water and coal or wood fuel could be obtained. By 1883, engines that could provide 10,000Â hp had become feasible.[6] The stationary steam engine was a key component of the Industrial Revolution, allowing factories to locate where water power was unavailable. The atmospheric engines of Newcomen and Watt were large compared to the amount of power they produced, but high-pressure steam engines were light enough to be applied to vehicles such as traction engines and the railway locomotives.
Cotton mill Before 1780, only water power was available to drive large mills,[44] but they were dependent on a constant flow of water and built in rural locations, causing problems of labour supply, transportation of materials and access to urban merchants for large mill-owners.[45] Steam engines had been used to pump water since the invention of the atmospheric engine by Thomas Newcomen in 1712[46] and, starting with the engine installed at Arkwright's Haarlem Mill in Wirksworth, Derbyshire in 1780, were used to supplement the supply of water to the water wheels of cotton mills.[47]