Why didn't the Romans invent steam engines?

[Compound2632]

We would have some superbus locomotive designers

 

Sir Nero Gresley

 

Octavia Bulleidius

 

Sir Maxima Stannier

 

Georgia Julius Churchwardium

 

Bearing the Roman "Standard" would have been

 

Romulus Riddlelia !!

 

Brit 15 "Apollo" - A joint Greek / Roman God

 

Britannia.

[melmerby]

It's notable with the stepping stones across the roads in my earlier post that there must have been a standard gauge for wagons within a fairly close tolerance else there would be chaos.

I have been to Pompeii a few times but have never thought to measure them.

 

Keith

[Smiffy2]

It's notable with the stepping stones across the roads in my earlier post that there must have been a standard gauge for wagons within a fairly close tolerance else there would be chaos.

I have been to Pompeii a few times but have never thought to measure them.

 

Keith

 

4' 9"

Something to do with the width of a big horse?

 

And were the ruts worn or carved? Theories for both, but of course once the ruts existed there was pressure to build new carts to roughly the same gauge, approximately 5'.

[meil]

The early steam engines of the industrial revolution where the great lumbering atmospheric pumping engines draining mines of flood water. And later used for pumping water in Birmingham

to keep the canals full, I think they still have a working one in the museum there.

It's not in Birmingham - it's at the Black Country Museum at Dudley.

[Nearholmer]

When it comes to rut-ways, and all sorts of other proto-railways come to that, M J T Lewis is the authority: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/242240630_RAILWAYS_IN_THE_GREEK_AND_ROMAN_WORLD

Edited December 3, 2017 by Nearholmer

[ForestPines]

It's not in Birmingham - it's at the Black Country Museum at Dudley.

 

The Black Country Museum has a replica of a Newcomen atmospheric engine, but I presume the original poster was referring to the Smethwick Engine, which is a Boulton & Watt engine originally built to pump water to the summit level of the Birmingham Canal in 1779, and which is now in Birmingham Thinktank.  It is apparently now the oldest working engine in the world.

[Titan]

4' 9"

Something to do with the width of a big horse?

 

And were the ruts worn or carved? Theories for both, but of course once the ruts existed there was pressure to build new carts to roughly the same gauge, approximately 5'.

 

I expect that there was a standard axle length of five feet. This may have been more important as this would dictate the overall width of the wagon. Build it any wider and you may have difficulty fitting it down some streets and passageways, i.e. the 'loading' gauge was probably more important. Of course the consequence of a five foot axle is that the 'gauge' between the wheels works out at something near 4' 8¹/₂"...

[rockershovel]

The design of horse carts hasn’t changed significantly in many, many years

 

- a horse can manage a maximum weight of about a ton

- the shafts shall be at or about the horses hip height, and wide enough to pass either side of the horse

- the wheels shall be large enough to cope with commonly encountered obstacles, but not excessively heavy

- the floor of the cart shall be of a height suitable for loading and unloading, and the load bed large enough for a suitable load

- the timbers of the cart shall be of a size commonly available

[The Johnster]

This is because the design of the horse has also not changed significantly in many, many years.

[Smiffy2]

This is because the design of the horse has also not changed significantly in many, many years.

 

Not strictly true, if you take into consideration the development of the heavy draft horse. I suspect that C19 horses were quite a lot bigger than C1 horses. Whether that altered the distance between the wheels is another matter.

[Trog]

Is it worth considering where the steam engine did develop, and what was different about that place? 

 

Briton in the 1700's and early 1800's.

 

Was it the relatively low level of central control, with fewer state sponsored monopolies who were happy to carry on in the same old way so long as they were making money, and who did not have to worry about some grubby northern merchant coming up with a machine and building a factory to compete with them, as they could simply send some troops in to deal with the upstart. So people were able to innovate as a route to wealth and success. Rome, China and later France in its glory days under Louis the 14 etc were all very centrally controlled, and the elites there would not have looked favourably on boat rockers, and could do something about it.

 

The all out effort to maintain the fleet to defend against France both before and during the Napoleonic period may also have been a tipping point, with the workshops and yards supporting the Navy growing to be industrial enterprises of previously unheard of sizes. The larger an enterprise or its supporting contracts becomes the more worthwhile a small percentage improvement in efficiency becomes. Spending X pounds to make the manufacture of a 100 widgets 2% more efficient may not be all that attractive. But if you can get a contract to make a million widgets by undercutting the more traditional manufacturer by 1% your fortune is made, and making a better version of your machine becomes the holy grail of a legion of engineers and tinkerers. Feeding the fleet year in year out also drove an improvement in agriculture as suddenly instead of just growing enough to feed your local area, there were huge contracts and loads of money to be had if you could come up with a better way of growing more. Once that agricultural productivity had been created off the back of state contracts, it could also be used to more cheaply feed new industrial towns making manufacturing more efficient. 

 

Once the mind set of innovation becomes established, and there is a market for its products it is industrial revolution here we come, and an industrial revolution needs power and that necessity within the constraints of the available and developing technology of the time makes the invention of a simple steam engine almost inevitable. Once a simple steam engine has been proved by an innovator, it will quickly be improved out of all recognition at a rapid rate by hordes of more pedestrian engineers making a tweak here and a adjustment there.

 

Britain has also always been a bit odd in the way it is governed, traditionally you had an all powerful monarch who ruled by decree, and all wealth tended to accrue to him and his nobles. Somehow in England there was a separation, where the monarch while getting his traditional tax dues the same as his European and classical peers. Lacked the right to impose new taxes, which had become the prerogative of Parliament. A king could rule without Parliament the same as the other monarchs, but eventually something would happen that needed a lot of money. The other monarchs would just impose a new tax, his English equivalent would be forced to call a parliament and scratch their backs by for example agreeing to curb various abuses of power etc. until they voted the money. I think this is what eventually gave England and then the whole of the early UK a larger middle class than was usual, as it became easier for the less powerful to hold onto what they earned and created. As Parliament was loath to vote for a tax that only affected the middling (ie them) class of people. It was then this middle class who had capital and were looking for ways to invest and grow their wealth who drove trade and innovation.

 

The existence of a large middle class also provides a market. In a society where all the wealth is held by a few, and all most all the rest of the population are living a life where they just grow enough to feed themselves. There is no need for large scale manufacture and the power to drive it. As hand artisans can make enough to keep the aristocracy in luxuries and if you make more there is no one to buy them.  Add a large middle class and you suddenly have a market to sell more to, and mass production of cheaper machine made knock offs of what the craftsmen are making for the aristocracy becomes very profitable.

[Compound2632]

Is it worth considering where the steam engine did develop, and what was different about that place? 

 

Briton in the 1700's and early 1800's.

 

Was it the relatively low level of central control, with fewer state sponsored monopolies who were happy to carry on in the same old way so long as they were making money, and who did not have to worry about some grubby northern merchant coming up with a machine and building a factory to compete with them, as they could simply send some troops in to deal with the upstart. So people were able to innovate as a route to wealth and success. Rome, China and later France in its glory days under Louis the 14 etc were all very centrally controlled, and the elites there would not have looked favourably on boat rockers, and could do something about it.

 

The all out effort to maintain the fleet to defend against France both before and during the Napoleonic period may also have been a tipping point, with the workshops and yards supporting the Navy growing to be industrial enterprises of previously unheard of sizes. The larger an enterprise or its supporting contracts becomes the more worthwhile a small percentage improvement in efficiency becomes. Spending X pounds to make the manufacture of a 100 widgets 2% more efficient may not be all that attractive. But if you can get a contract to make a million widgets by undercutting the more traditional manufacturer by 1% your fortune is made, and making a better version of your machine becomes the holy grail of a legion of engineers and tinkerers. Feeding the fleet year in year out also drove an improvement in agriculture as suddenly instead of just growing enough to feed your local area, there were huge contracts and loads of money to be had if you could come up with a better way of growing more. Once that agricultural productivity had been created off the back of state contracts, it could also be used to more cheaply feed new industrial towns making manufacturing more efficient. 

 

Once the mind set of innovation becomes established, and there is a market for its products it is industrial revolution here we come, and an industrial revolution needs power and that necessity within the constraints of the available and developing technology of the time makes the invention of a simple steam engine almost inevitable. Once a simple steam engine has been proved by an innovator, it will quickly be improved out of all recognition at a rapid rate by hordes of more pedestrian engineers making a tweak here and a adjustment there.

 

Britain has also always been a bit odd in the way it is governed, traditionally you had an all powerful monarch who ruled by decree, and all wealth tended to accrue to him and his nobles. Somehow in England there was a separation, where the monarch while getting his traditional tax dues the same as his European and classical peers. Lacked the right to impose new taxes, which had become the prerogative of Parliament. A king could rule without Parliament the same as the other monarchs, but eventually something would happen that needed a lot of money. The other monarchs would just impose a new tax, his English equivalent would be forced to call a parliament and scratch their backs by for example agreeing to curb various abuses of power etc. until they voted the money. I think this is what eventually gave England and then the whole of the early UK a larger middle class than was usual, as it became easier for the less powerful to hold onto what they earned and created. As Parliament was loath to vote for a tax that only affected the middling (ie them) class of people. It was then this middle class who had capital and were looking for ways to invest and grow their wealth who drove trade and innovation.

 

The existence of a large middle class also provides a market. In a society where all the wealth is held by a few, and all most all the rest of the population are living a life where they just grow enough to feed themselves. There is no need for large scale manufacture and the power to drive it. As hand artisans can make enough to keep the aristocracy in luxuries and if you make more there is no one to buy them.  Add a large middle class and you suddenly have a market to sell more to, and mass production of cheaper machine made knock offs of what the craftsmen are making for the aristocracy becomes very profitable.

 

And yet in the 18th Century, even before the revolution, France was at the fore-front of state-sponsored scientific and technical development, in some areas with great success - the most coveted ship-of-the-line for an ambitious Royal Navy captain in the Napoleonic wars would be a captured French 74-gun ship. So why didn't the industrial revolution take off there? In Britain, religion played a key role - the nonconformists, especially the Quakers and Unitarians, were barred from the political and professional life of the country and needed an outlet for the protestant work ethic.

[phil gollin]

.

 

France was at the forefront of early industrialisation, especially canals, and tangentially steam engines.  And such things as the Jacquard Loom was really advanced.

 

However, whereas in England the aristocracy (and a relatively large merchant/middle class) was open to investing in individuals and companies in the France of the Ancien Regime such investment was much rarer.  

[Trog]

And yet in the 18th Century, even before the revolution, France was at the fore-front of state-sponsored scientific and technical development, in some areas with great success - the most coveted ship-of-the-line for an ambitious Royal Navy captain in the Napoleonic wars would be a captured French 74-gun ship. So why didn't the industrial revolution take off there?

 

Because the French ships were well designed and sailed well.

 

At this time both British and French Ships of the time were hand built by craftsmen, the difference was that in the British yards more of the individual components, supplies and ammunition were starting to be mass produced, which made it possible to build more of them. Marc Brunel for example getting his start in this country by designing a machine to make the 100,000 blocks a year needed to rig the Royal Navies ships. The fact that Royal Navy ships spent longer at sea and that the British dockyards ended up supplying a lot of the French built ships with gear would also have created a greater demand, and hence helped drive the development of more efficient methods of production. Also the demands of a Navy that wants to be off Cadiz next week are harder to supply by craft methods than one that may want to sail sometime next year.

 

One of the great advantages that the British forces had at that time was the combination of a country made rich enough by trade to allow them to practice with cheaply made mass produced live ammunition.

[coachmann]

The invention of the steam loco was more about moving produce far more conveniently and cheaply than by existing means than about politics. Politics did come into play however once the railway revolution got into gear, and the Wigs and some Tories hated the people involved with the railways, who they referred to as 'new money'.  One can easily imagine a Wig nimby saying "Those bloody people think they are going to build a railway within site of my mansion'. Fake tunnels had to be built to hide railways, and castilian style tunnels mouths and goods sheds had to appease land owners.

 

Neither did the traditionally wealthy like the idea of their captive citizens being able to travel beyond the boundaries of the village. "By gad, we will lose our cheap-labour Postelthwaite!"  Memories are long in Britain and old scores were settled after the railways were nationalized in 1948. ...."We were never happy about the building of the damned railway and we will be glad to see the back of it". 

 

If it isn't true, it should be.......

Edited December 8, 2017 by coachmann

[62613]

.

 

France was at the forefront of early industrialisation, especially canals, and tangentially steam engines.  And such things as the Jacquard Loom was really advanced.

 

However, whereas in England the aristocracy (and a relatively large merchant/middle class) was open to investing in individuals and companies in the France of the Ancien Regime such investment was much rarer.  

Because in France, and most other continental European countries, it wasn't considered good 'form' for the aristocracy to become involved in 'trade'; they found their jobs in the army, or as diplomats. In Britain at the time, there was no such bar. It must be remembered that most continental monarchies were more or less bankrupt; the founding of the Bank of England and the national debt in 1694(?) gave England a start which she didn't relinquish until the Great War.

[Nearholmer]

There’s a sound argument to say that we relinquished our industrial lead c1870, but be that as it may, we’ve clung steadfastly to the national debt.

 

Somewhere in the Bank of England there is a mountain of IOUs, with a Union Jack stuck in the top of it.

 

(Actually, thinking about it, the IOUs must be in somebody else’s bank, but you know what I mean)

Edited December 8, 2017 by Nearholmer

[alfsboy]

I thought the huge profits from slavery fueled the industrial revolution .When the profits are vast they have to go somewhere productive and or into art ,a fancy houses,excess etc .The aristocracy financed the slave trade as well as the plantations  so a double profit .so when some guy came up and said he had invented coal there was a ready market for finance from people who could risk a few weeks slave earnings on some madcap project like a steam engine or a coal mine or a metal bridge .

 

A friend of mine in the US ,now  sadly deceased grew up in Hollywood  before the war .His father represented screen writers .They earned so much money, about 5000 USD  plus  a month  ,a colossal sum   .When a stock salesman knocked on their door  and met them round the pool he   recommended shares in IBM .One  guy bought about 10.000 usd worth  as he had the spare money .Decades later his widow cashed them in for about 60 million .No idea if this is accurate but it shows a dynamic that spare money fires up .Also who in the UK would buy stocks and shares from an itinerant  door to door salesman .The rich would have set their dogs on him .

[Ozexpatriate]

And yet in the 18th Century, even before the revolution, France was at the fore-front of state-sponsored scientific and technical development, in some areas with great success - the most coveted ship-of-the-line for an ambitious Royal Navy captain in the Napoleonic wars would be a captured French 74-gun ship. So why didn't the industrial revolution take off there?

I think that's pretty easy to answer. The reign of terror decimated a generation of educated intellectuals.

 

The beginning of the Pax Britannia was the perfect time for peacetime technical innovations to flourish, just like the semiconductor revolution did during the Pax Americana of the second half of the 20^th century.

 

I thought the huge profits from slavery fueled the industrial revolution .When the profits are vast they have to go somewhere productive and or into art ,a fancy houses,excess etc .The aristocracy financed the slave trade as well as the plantations  so a double profit .so when some guy came up and said he had invented coal there was a ready market for finance from people who could risk a few weeks slave earnings on some madcap project like a steam engine or a coal mine or a metal bridge .

Not just the slave trade, but the whole colonial mercantile system. It didn't end with slavery. The emergence of machinery was an investment opportunity and Blake's dark Satanic Mills were fed by raw materials produced by colonial serfs, ultimately in India.

 

Your reference to IBM is interesting. The tech boom of the computer age fueled similar growth in the Pax Americana.

Edited December 8, 2017 by Ozexpatriate

[Ozexpatriate]

There’s a sound argument to say that we relinquished our industrial lead c1870, but be that as it may, we’ve clung steadfastly to the national debt.

 

Somewhere in the Bank of England there is a mountain of IOUs, with a Union Jack stuck in the top of it.

 

(Actually, thinking about it, the IOUs must be in somebody else’s bank, but you know what I mean)

An historical cycle being repeated on this side of the Atlantic. Similar American IOUs are sitting in China.

 

There is a theory that if an empire is not expanding, it is decaying.

Edited December 8, 2017 by Ozexpatriate

[Nearholmer]

Well OT, but I’ve always wanted to see a nice complicated diagram showing who owes what to whom.

 

As a nation, we appear to owe vast sums, and more every week, and it would be nice to know who we are borrowing it from. Just out of interest (!) really.

 

(A quick google suggests that only about 30% of our national debt is owned overseas; I assumed the % was much higher. And, it appears that we own 1.1% of the US national debt ....... its this sort of thing that makes me want a diagram!)

Edited December 8, 2017 by Nearholmer

[brack]

Had slavery caused or catalysed the industrial revolution, then it would have occurred in Portugal or Spain first, or perhaps in France. Britain's advantage in trade didn't come from slavery, nor particularly a plantation system which wasn't massively different from the French one. Our advantage in trade came from stability, naval superiority and trade between colonies, rather than solely colony - motherland.

Having said that, whilst this provided capital to finance improvements, the start of the industrial revolution didn't come from some far off benighted underdeveloped land, but from devon and Cornwall (er...) The Midlands and the north east. The stimulus was pumping out flooded mines to allow domestic mineral extraction at greater depth. Once Newcomen and watt/boulton had proved and developed this technology, making it smaller and mobile was inevitable, and that this occurred where there was a) a supply of fuel b) engineers looking after stationary steam engines and c) wagonways to carry coal to ports surely wasn't much of a surprise.

[melmerby]

The Black Country Museum has a replica of a Newcomen atmospheric engine, but I presume the original poster was referring to the Smethwick Engine, which is a Boulton & Watt engine originally built to pump water to the summit level of the Birmingham Canal in 1779, and which is now in Birmingham Thinktank.  It is apparently now the oldest working engine in the world.

Old Steam engines in Birmingham?

 

There are so many they can afford to plonk this 200 year old Watt designed engine in the middle of a roundabout!

https://goo.gl/maps/HU9MbbX1boM2

 

Keith

[Ozexpatriate]

Having said that, whilst this provided capital to finance improvements, the start of the industrial revolution didn't come from some far off benighted underdeveloped land, but from devon and Cornwall (er...) The Midlands and the north east..

Steam technology accelerated the process, but the industrial revolution was already happening without steam power in the form of water powered mills in the 18^th century.

 

Of course massive water power was nothing new, the Romans having demonstrated their proficiency there. 

[Nearholmer]

Ozex

 

From what I can understand, the proportion of US national debt owned overseas is about the same as for the UK, just under 30%, with China and Japan being the largest holders, each with about a quarter of the overseas holding.

 

But, for every dollar the US owes to an overseas government, it is owed 89 cents by foreign governments. I can't find the comparable figure for the UK, but it's this sort of stuff that needs a diagram to illustrate mutual dependency.

 

Most national debt seems to be owned by collective or individual pension funds in the 'home' country, which makes the recent proposal by Mr President to 'devalue' US national debt particularly weird ...... it would involve devaluing the pension pots of all of his voters, which surely wouldn't go down too well! Wasn't it that sort of thing that had the normally peaceable Greeks out on the streets in anger?

 

K

Edited December 8, 2017 by Nearholmer