Thomas Savery

Thomas Savery (c. 1650–1715) was an English military engineer and inventor from Devon, who held the rank of captain. On 2 July 1698 he patented the first commercially used steam-powered machine, a steam pump for draining mines and supplying towns with water, demonstrated to the Royal Society and described in his treatise The Miner's Friend.

Its condensing steam created a partial vacuum to draw water up, but the pump wasted heat and could not work effectively in deep mines. Parliament extended his patent in 1699, and his work in Dartmouth probably brought him into contact with Thomas Newcomen.