Thomas Savery (c.1650-1715) was an English inventor, born at Shilstone, a manor house near Modbury, Devon, England.

Initially interested in naval applications of engineering (he designed an early paddle-wheel), Savery then became interested in pumping machines. On 2 July 1698 he patented an early steam engine, and in 1702 he published details of the machine in the book Miner's Friend Savery, T., Miner's Friend, text at Rochester University (USA) History Resources, which claimed that it could pump water out of mines. Savery's pump had no piston, but used a combination of atmospheric pressure and steam pressure to raise water. The atmospheric action was limited to lifting a column of water about thirty feet high. This could be increased to about fifty feet by using steam pressure, but the extra stress placed on the boiler by this pressure made it unreliable. The machine was therefore not capable of raising water from the depth of a mine, and the only known working versions were used for water-supply pumping in London E. I. Carlyle, 'Savery , Thomas (1650?–1715)', rev. Christopher F. Lindsey, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004, accessed 29 April 2006.

In 1712 Savery entered into a business partnership with Thomas Newcomen in order to develop Newcomen's more advanced design of steam engine. This worked purely by atmospheric pressure, thereby avoiding the dangers of high-pressure steam, and used the piston concept invented in 1690 by Denis Papin of France to produce the first steam engine capable of raising water from deep mines.

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