The King George III Collection

Now known as atmospheric engines, this is described in the Queen's catalogue as "a compleat model of a fire engine with all the modern improvements", and is based on the design described by Desaguliers in his "Course of Experimental Philosophy", where he related that Newcomen, an ironmonger, and Cauley, a glazier, had brought the fire engine to 'its present form' which had been used "these 30 years" and had solved some problems appertaining to an earlier version.
 

The actual engine he described was one of the ones at Griff near Coventry in use in the 1720s to help water out of a coal mine. It is possible that Desaguliers made this model himself or had it made for him, since he did construct a model engine in his garden. This model is complete but has been altered. Model of Newcomen's engine, before 1753 © Science Museum/Science & Society Picture Library

Click on these links for:
A 1.11 MB animated .gif file showing the Newcomen engine working
A 449 kB .mpg file showing the Newcomen engine working
Software to play the .mpg file