He
provided Watt with metal cylinders of perfectly accurate shape,
which were necessary for the smooth working of Watt's steam
engine. In 1775 he bought a pumping steam engine from Boulton and
Watt's company for his ironworks. It pumped three times as fast as
Newcomen's engine.
Watt's steam engine came to be used for power-loom weaving and
then for all sorts of manufactures. It would put England ahead of
every manufacturing country in the world. Millwrights built,
installed, and later designed not only steam engines but the
machinery that they drove. These men were essential in setting up
the first factories. They were the most imaginative and
resourceful craftsmen. They knew how to use a turner's, a
carpenter's and a blacksmith's tools and had supervised or done
smith work, brick-laying or stone-mason's work in erecting and
maintaining windmills with their many gears and bearings. There
was a good deal of variety in mills, as well as in the structure
and workmanship of them, some being worked by horses, some by
wind, and others by water. They had some knowledge of arithmetic
and practical mechanics. They could draw out a plan and calculate
the speed and power of a wheel. Although technically in a branch
of carpentry, the millwrights learned to work with metal as well.
Metal was superior to wood not only because of its strength but
because wood parts were irregular in motion and wore out rapidly.
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