The Making of Steam Power Technology A Study of Technical Change during the British Industrial Revolution _____________________________________________________________________ Alessandro Nuvolari Eindhoven Centre for Innovation Studies (ECIS) Eindhoven University of Technology, the Netherlands CIP – DATA LIBRARY TECHNISCHE UNIVERSITEIT EINDHOVEN Nuvolari, Alessandro The making of steam power technology / by Alessandro Nuvolari. – Eindhoven: Technische Universiteit Eindhoven, 2004. – Proefschrift. – ISBN 90-386-2077-2 NUR 696 Keywords: Economical history / Industrial history / Steam engines; history Cover illustration: John Farey, vertical section of Arthur Woolf’s compound engine at Wheal Vor Mine (Cornwall), circa 1839 Cover design: Paul Verspaget Printing: Eindhoven University Press The Making of Steam Power Technology A Study of Technical Change during the British Industrial Revolution PROEFSCHRIFT ter verkrijging van de graad van doctor aan de Technische Universiteit Eindhoven, op gezag van de Rector Magnificus, prof.dr. R.A. van Santen, voor een commissie aangewezen door het College voor Promoties in het openbaar te verdedigen op donderdag 23 september 2004 om 16.00 uur door Alessandro Nuvolari geboren te Mantova, Italië Dit proefschrift is goedgekeurd door de promotoren: prof.dr. H.H.G. Verspagen en prof.dr. G.N. von Tunzelmann Copromotor: dr.ir. G.P.J. Verbong ‘You see, Tom,’ said Mr Deane, at last, throwing himself backward, ‘the world goes on at a smarter pace now than it did when I was a young fellow. Why, sir, forty years ago, when I was much such a strapping youngster as you, a man expected to pull between the shafts the best part of his life, before he got the whip in his hand. The looms went slowish, and fashions didn’t alter quite so fast – I’d a best suit that lasted me six years. Everything was on a lower scale, sir – in point of expenditure, I mean. It’s this steam, you see, that has made the difference – it drives on every wheel double pace and the wheel of Fortune along with’ em……. George Eliot, The Mill on the Floss Preface This book is the result of a PhD project that I undertook at the Eindhoven Centre for Innovation Studies (ECIS) about four years ago. As it was originally formulated, the research aimed at exploring systematically a small portion of what Sir John Habakkuk called “the debatable borderland between history, technology and economics”. For several reasons, the case of steam power technology seemed a particular suitable ground for exploiting the potentialities of cross-fertilization between the three disciplines. My greatest debt is to my supervisors: Bart Verspagen, Nick von Tunzelmann and Geert Verbong. Bart Verspagen has been an invaluable source of inspiration, first by helping me in the identification of the relevant research challenges and then by providing, at every step, suggestions on how to tackle them. The intellectual debt I owe Nick von Tunzelmann will be, without doubt, apparent to every reader of Steam Power and British Industrialization to 1860. Additionally, Nick provided a precious and continuous critical feedback on my research findings. Finally, Geert Verbong, introduced me to the history of steam engine technology, which, before coming to Eindhoven, was completely unknown to me. Furthermore, in various topical moments, Geert drew my attention to the historical importance of issues that, at first sight, looked simply as inconsequential engineering details. Remarkably, in other circumstances, he invited me to broaden the perspective and take into account the wider context in which technological developments had taken place. In the four years I spent working on the thesis, I was fortunate enough to share my office with colleagues, that soon became invaluable friends: Michiel van Dijk, Andriew Lim and Frank Vercoulen. Besides help and suggestions on parts of the thesis, they are responsible for creating a somewhat chaotic but wonderfully pleasant working environment. It was this atmosphere that greatly helped me to cope with the occasional moments of frustration and temporary set-backs that are typical of every long research project. Koen Frenken, Carolina Castaldi and Christine MacLeod deserve a very special word of acknowledgment. Koen pushed me to consider the potentialities of complex systems theory for the study of technological change. The results reported in chapter 4 are the outcome of a joint research effort that we undertook in this direction. In addition, Koen made extensive comments on various parts of the thesis. Carolina provided encouragement, suggestions and advice in the concluding phase when I had to weave together the various threads of the research. Finally, I am particularly grateful to Christine for many enjoyable discussions and stimulating electronic correspondence on various aspects of the process of technological change during the British Industrial Revolution. viii The Making of Steam Power Technology Special thanks go to John W. Kanefsky for providing me with the updated version of his dataset of eighteenth century British steam engines which has been the basis for the findings reported in chapters 3 and 4. Along the road, I have enormously benefited from recurring “wide-ranging” discussions with an “invisible college” of friends and colleagues who are also engaged, in various ways, in the “craft” of innovation studies, namely Nicoletta Corrocher, Bart Los, Roberto Fontana, Paola Criscuolo, Fergal Shortall, Stefano Brusoni, Eugenia Cacciatori and Jerry Silverberg. I am deeply grateful to all of them for being an unfailing source of new ideas and enthusiasm for research. Within ECIS, I could not overlook the support of my colleagues and office neighbours of the “Technology and Policy” department. In particular, I would like to mention Eddy Szirmai, Rudi Bekkers, Ted Clarkson, Jojo Jacob, Onder Nomaler, Effie Kesidou, Cristoph Meister, Orietta Marsili, Andre’ Lorentz, Brian Portelli, Martijn Bakker and Bert Sadowski. I would like also to thank the members of the “reading committee” Kristine Bruland and Joel Mokyr for thoughtful comments on the first draft of the thesis. A grant of the European Commission (Marie Curie fellowship) gave me the opportunity to spend a period of six months at SPRU (Science and Technology Policy Research), University of Sussex. The grant was also instrumental for the collection of the data on steam engine patents used in chapter 5. SPRU proved to be another important source of inspiration for my research. I want to thank Aldo Geuna, Vincente Benito Ortiz, Ed Steinmueller, Isabel(la) Freitas, Elisa Giuliani, Andrea Prencipe and Ammon Salter for making my stay at SPRU particularly enjoyable, not only from a “scientific” point of view. I wish to express my deep gratitude to the staff of the Cornish Studies Library (Cornwall Centre, Redruth), the Royal Institution of Cornwall (Truro), the Science Museum Library (London) and the British Library (London) for their help and guidance. In Eindhoven, Leon Osinski provided constant assistance with library matters. Two research seminars given at CESPRI (Centro di Studio sui Processi di Innovazione e Internazionalizzazione), Bocconi University, Milan, represented an extremely stimulating sounding board for my preliminary research findings. I am particularly grateful for their constructive criticisms to Franco Malerba, Francesco Lissoni, Anna Canato, Stefano Breschi, Fabio Montobbio, Marco Guerzoni, Lucia Cusmano, Maria Luisa Mancusi, Lorenzo Cassi and Lorenzo Zirulia. In retrospect, I realize that most of the suggestions I received at CESPRI have found their way in the final version of the book. Chris Hodrien suggested me a number of very helpful references on steam engineering matters. Bridget Howard read and kindly commented in detail an early version of chapter 5. The present version takes into account her remarks, although I am fairly sure that she will still consider some of the conclusions I reach with some degree of scepticism. Finally, parts of this work were presented at various seminars, conferences, summer schools and workshops in Strasbourg, Dublin, Lisbon, Cargese, Durham, Manchester, Paris, Pisa, Copenhagen, Reading, Groningen, Utrecht, Philadelphia, and Augsburg. I would like to thank the participants at these meetings (especially Richard Nelson, Pat Preface ix Hudson, Liliane Hilaire-Perez, Dominique Foray, Laura Magazzini, Ben Gales, Fulvio Castellacci, Marcel P. Timmer, Paul A. David, Alfonso Gambardella, Bart van Ark and Nick Crafts) for their comments and suggestions. Alessandro Nuvolari Eindhoven, July 2004 Contents Preface vii 1. Introduction 1 PART I. THE BACKGROUND 2. The Development of Steam Power Technology 11 PART II. THE EMERGENCE OF STEAM ENGINE TECHNOLOGY DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 3. The Diffusion of the Steam Engine in Eighteenth Century Britain 47 4. The Early Development of the Steam Engine: An Evolutionary Interpretation using Complexity Theory 69 PART III. THE APPLICATION OF STEAM TECHNOLOGY IN THE CORNISH MINING DISTRICT 5. Collective Invention during the British Industrial Revolution: the Case of the Cornish Pumping Engine 95 6. “Unravelling the Duty”: Lean’s Engine Reporter and the Development of the Cornish Steam Engine 123 7. The Drivers of Technical Progress in Cornish Steam Engines 159 PART IV. CONCLUSIONS 8. The Making of Steam Power Technology in Retrospect 179 Bibliography 191 Summary in Dutch (Samenvatting) 205 About the Author 209 1. Introduction 1.1. Preliminary considerations In the Preface to the first edition of The Making