Thomas Newcomen's invention was the world's first effective steam engine - the first time human society had managed to get mechanical power from steam, and the first time we could pump water from underground, allowing deep mining to happen (the reason why he invented it). It totally transformed the world. When James Watt developed his engine, it was decades later, by adapting a Newcomen, and when there was already hundreds of Newcomen engines already powering a new Industrial Age. Our Newcomen E