IEEC2.2 21` Francis Thompson Engineer Designer of the Pentrich Engine

Francis Thompson Engineer

Designer of the Pentrich Engine

David Hulse

An off-print from

Transactions of the 2nd International Early Engines Conference - Volume 2 pp223-228

Summary

The atmospheric engine built by Francis Thomson at Pentrich Colliery in 1791 was dismantled and re-erected in the Kensington Science Museum in 1921 and is well known to many of us. Equally well known are the scaled down reconstructions of early engines painstakingly built by David Hulse. This paper provides a detailed insight into the methods, process and materials of David’s model of the Pentrich Engine. In this endeavour he has made extensive use of the detailed photographs, drawings and descriptions of the engine provided by W.T. Anderson’s1917 paper ‘Notes on an Early Pumping Engine (1791)’, some of which are reproduced here.

This account and David’s scaled reconstruction of the engine gives us many useful insights into how the engine worked as part of an integrated mines drainage system and the challenges of making a scaled model that can be made to work in an accurate way.