<P> The first successful piston steam engine was introduced by Thomas Newcomen before 1712 . A number of Newcomen engines were installed in Britain for draining hitherto unworkable deep mines, with the engine on the surface; these were large machines, requiring a significant amount of capital to build, and produced upwards of 5 hp (3.7 kW). They were also used to power municipal water supply pumps . They were extremely inefficient by modern standards, but when located where coal was cheap at pit heads, opened up a great expansion in coal mining by allowing mines to go deeper . Despite their disadvantages, Newcomen engines were reliable and easy to maintain and continued to be used in the coalfields until the early decades of the 19th century . By 1729, when Newcomen died, his engines had spread (first) to Hungary in 1722, Germany, Austria, and Sweden . A total of 110 are known to have been built by 1733 when the joint patent expired, of which 14 were abroad . In the 1770s the engineer John Smeaton built some very large examples and introduced a number of improvements . A total of 1,454 engines had been built by 1800 . </P> <P> A fundamental change in working principles was brought about by Scotsman James Watt . With financial support from his business partner Englishman Matthew Boulton, he had succeeded by 1778 in perfecting his steam engine, which incorporated a series of radical improvements, notably the closing off of the upper part of the cylinder, thereby making the low - pressure steam drive the top of the piston instead of the atmosphere, use of a steam jacket and the celebrated separate steam condenser chamber . The separate condenser did away with the cooling water that had been injected directly into the cylinder, which cooled the cylinder and wasted steam . Likewise, the steam jacket kept steam from condensing in the cylinder, also improving efficiency . These improvements increased engine efficiency so that Boulton & Watts engines used only 20--25% as much coal per horsepower - hour as Newcomen's . Boulton and Watt opened the Soho Foundry for the manufacture of such engines in 1795 . </P> <P> By 1783 the Watt steam engine had been fully developed into a double - acting rotative type, which meant that it could be used to directly drive the rotary machinery of a factory or mill . Both of Watt's basic engine types were commercially very successful, and by 1800, the firm Boulton & Watt had constructed 496 engines, with 164 driving reciprocating pumps, 24 serving blast furnaces, and 308 powering mill machinery; most of the engines generated from 5 to 10 hp (3.7 to 7.5 kW). </P> <P> Until about 1800 the most common pattern of steam engine was the beam engine, built as an integral part of a stone or brick engine - house, but soon various patterns of self - contained rotative engines (readily removable, but not on wheels) were developed, such as the table engine . Around the start of the 19th century, at which time the Boulton and Watt patent expired, the Cornish engineer Richard Trevithick and the American Oliver Evans began to construct higher - pressure non-condensing steam engines, exhausting against the atmosphere . High pressure yielded an engine and boiler compact enough to be used on mobile road and rail locomotives and steam boats . </P>

Which was a major factor that led the industrial revolution started in britain