On this page, observations of various kinds appear that are related to big history. In our troubled times, the following short essay may hopefully provide some enjoyable distraction.

 

 

 

November 9, 2022

 

Introduction

 

The role of suction water pumps made out of metal for kick starting the industrial revolution is well known. In eighteenth century England they were used to pump water from the mines using draught horses, until the first steam engines designed by the British engineer Thomas Newcomen began powering those pumps. The rest is history. Nothing new here.

 

But what about the history of those pumps, most notably of their central element: a piston fitting snugly inside a metal cylinder? Perhaps not a great deal of news here, either. But what if we consider that such a construction is also an essential portion of steam engines? In that case, the moving piston is pushed by hot steam, in doing so powering whatever applications are attached to it.

 

To my knowledge, the history of this central feature of both steam engines and water pumps may not yet have received the attention that it deserves. This is even more remarkable because, seen from a human history perspective, its development was part of a long-term process that is uniquely West-European. Nowhere else in the world were metal piston pumps and steam engines invented. Why not? What was so unique about Western Europe that it happened there but nowhere else in the world?

 

In this short contribution, it will be argued that the long-distance European oceanic voyages starting in the fifteenth century played a crucial role in this process. In other words, without the European overseas expansion, quite likely there would not have been metal piston pumps, and therefore no steam engines in eighteenth-century Great Britain nor anywhere else in the world. In consequence, the industrial revolution as we know it would not have happened at that time, either.

 

A very short history of water pumps

 

For a better understanding of this remarkable situation, we need to trace the history of suction pumps. Raising water from lower to higher levels has been done for thousands of years, first by lifting pots or buckets filled with water to the places where it was needed. One could think, for instance, of buckets lowered into wells and then hoisted up, or water wheels driven by human or animal power. Those technologies for satisfying human and animal needs as well as for maintaining types of agriculture that required irrigation water would first have been developed in the area ranging from the Near East (as seen from Europe) all the way to China.

 

During the first fifteenth-century oceanic voyages pioneered by the Portuguese and the Spanish, the inevitable bilge water of those little leaky wooden ships was taken out using buckets. But soon it was realized that those long sea crossings required a better technology for keeping their ships sufficiently dry. Seeking to solve that problem led to novel inventions.

 

Already between 1519 and 1522 CE, when the Spanish sea captain Juan Sebastian Elcano and his crew sailed around the world for the first time on the Spanish nao Victoria, wooden suction pumps were in use. Quite likely, they were based on the so-called force pump invented in the third century BCE by the Hellenistic engineer Ctesibius of Alexandria.

 

It is not clear to me whether, in antiquity, the Ctesibius pumps were made out of wood or metal, or perhaps out of both materials, depending on the circumstances. But the first suction pumps used by those Spanish ocean-going vessels were apparently made out of wood.

 

In captain Elcano’s report to the young king of Spain, Charles the First, dated September 6, 1522 CE, written after having arrived back in the Spanish harbor town of Sanlucar de Barrameda, he described their efforts to keep their tiny ship afloat as follows: “With an enormous amount of work at the pump, so that day and night we did nothing else but taking the water out, being so weakened as no other man has ever been, with the help of God and Our Lady, after having passed three years, we anchored [back in Spain].” (As quoted by the Spanish nautical historian Agustín R. Rodríguez González in his book of 2018, La primera vuelta al mundo, 1519-1522, p.151, my translation).

 

Clearly, among those pioneering mariners an improvement of this technology would have been very welcome. Already in 1526 CE, the Spanish inventor Diego Rivero filed his invention in Spain of a metal suction pump that could take the water out ten times as efficiently as the wooden pumps. Yet for various reasons it was more expensive than the earlier wooden pumps, which for decades delayed its use on the high seas. But after its advantages had been recognized, metal suction pumps were adopted not only in Spain but also in the rest of Northwestern Europe.

 

Suction pumps require a tight fit between piston and cylinder, and not too much corrosion of the metal parts in the corrosive circumstances in which they were operated, most notably salty sea water. This must have led to engineering and metallurgical improvements to make those pumps better, longer lasting, and more reliable, during the long periods of time that those oceanic voyages required. To improve the fit between piston and cylinder, leather strips were often used.

 

The force pump designed by Ctesibius had already been used in antiquity for extinguishing fires. Following into his footsteps, the Dutch seventeenth-century inventors Jan and Nicolaes van der Heyden realized that the newly improved metal suction pumps could do such a job more efficiently. At that time, European cities were still mostly built out of wooden construction materials, and urban fires represented an enormous threat. To quench the fires, water usually had to be provided in buckets handed over by chains of people. Now, the improved invention could do the same job more efficiently. An strengthened hose that would not collapse from the suction power exerted by the pump would take water out of a canal, while spraying the fire with another hose similarly attached to that pump.

 

Also this invention –including the organization of fire brigades– spread through Europe. As a result, until today in both the French and Spanish language the fire brigade is still known as the pompiers or bomberos, the ‘pumpers.’ Yet doing so was only feasible in those places where water was sufficiently available, such as in the Dutch republic with its great many rivers, canals, and lakes. This helps to explain why its adoption all over Europe was initially slow. Yet over the course of time that problem was solved by the construction of artificial ponds that were strategically placed near built-up areas. Those water reservoirs could be tapped in times of such emergencies.

 

Water suction pumps also made it possible to pump water out of mines more efficiently, while village and urban wells that operated with towed buckets were increasingly replaced by such new devices. During the subsequent centuries, many other designs of, and applications for, water pumps were invented, too many to be mentioned here, jointly adding to the increasing human influence on the biospheric water loops.

 

Air suction pumps, steam engines, and internal combustion engines

 

In seventeenth-century northwestern Europe, a further technical refinement took place when pioneers such as Otto von Guericke, Robert Boyle, Robert Hooke, and Christiaan Huygens began to develop air pumps based on the design of metal piston pumps. Their examples were soon followed by many others in Europe (Floris Cohen, 2012: How Modern Science Came into the World, Four Civilizations, One 17th-Century Breakthrough, p.459-462). Almost needless to say, making air pumps that worked sufficiently well required a more precise fit between the piston and the cylinder. Oer the course of time, this led to considerable technological improvements as well as an increasing number of applications, such as, for instance, inflating bicycle and car tires.

 

As the Dutch historian of science Floris Cohen noted (I cannot find a reference, but I remember him saying so during his fascinating presentations within our University of Amsterdam big history course), those air pumps were precursors of the piston and cylinder that later became an indispensable portion of all classic steam engines.

 

To be sure, even today hot steam is still used for generating electricity by powering steam turbines. But in those turbines, cylinders and pistons are no longer used. Yet in the meantime, pistons and cylinders also became a central feature of gasoline internal combustion engines, which are still the dominant way of powering all kinds of vehicles and other contraptions, even though that epoch may soon be coming to an end as well.

 

Nowhere else in the world did such developments take place. As we saw above, the European overseas sailing voyages in leaky wooden vessels played a crucial role in this chain of events. As said above, this was a uniquely European development. It therefore appeared justified to say that without those long oceanic crossings and the resulting improved metal suction pump technology, the industrial revolution would not have happened either in Europe nor anywhere else in the world at the time that it did. I am not aware of any historical analysis in which this has already been pointed out.

 

One might argue that in due course,  without such long-distance sea voyages suction pumps based on Ctesibius’ design would have been made out of metal anyway. And after that was done, the road would have been open to the industrial revolution based on steam engines. But that is not what happened in history, neither in Europe nor anywhere else in the world. As a result, in the history that did happen metal suction pumps invented to better facilitate those long oceanic sailing trips did play a crucial role in that process.

 

How did I find out? The importance of model building

 

When I was about ten years old, I loved to build ship’s and airplane’s models. Inspired by my Dutch patriotic history education, I craved to build one of those mighty wooden seventeenth-century Dutch men of war that sported a great many heavy cannons on each side. Such warships were known as ‘ships of the line.’ However, in the late 1950s and early 1960s such models were not available in the Netherlands, at least not to my knowledge. My father gave me instead a plastic construction kit made by the British firm Airfix of the eighteenth-century English sailing ship H.M.S. Endeavour, that between 1768 and 1771 CE went on its voyage of exploration commanded by captain James Cook.

 

At that time, I did not know anything about what looked to me like a rather boring, basic, plump, solid but apparently slow, ship, sporting only two larger cannons, as well as ten smaller ones attached to its railings. But I built it nevertheless, while my father told me a little about its history. Also the explanation in the Instructions helped me to understand its history and design a little better, while reading those Instructions helped me a great deal to learn English, which was not yet taught at Dutch school at my age.

 

However, this model did not sport any sails. And because sails power sailing ships, they are a fundamental portion of such vessels. This lack of sails has bothered me ever since that time. Yet when I was young, I did not see a solution to that problem. After retirement, however, while reconsidering this situation including looking at old photos of me holding that ship’s model, I felt an urge to do something about it. Very fortunately, the same Airfix construction kit was still available on eBay. Thanks to my improved model-building skills, I succeeded in building anew a model of that ship. But this time, I added sails to it made on a sewing machine out of an old white T-shirt that satisfied my expectations.

 

In addition, during the preceding fifty years I had learned how important that expedition had been for influencing human history. Seen from today’s point of view, it remains amazing, that the crew of such a rather basic ship could do all of that without being stopped in doing so by the people all around the globe wherever they went, while today, James Cook and his men would not stand the slightest chance. This similarly applies to all the earlier European overseas voyages. Such considerations inform us of the extraordinary worldwide changes in skills, power, and dependency that societies almost everywhere have experienced over the past centuries.

 

The main deck of the Endeavour model features three water suction pumps. When I was young, I did not question that. I just glued them into place. But at my age I have learned to question more, and, much more importantly, to take my own questions seriously and pursue them. I suddenly wondered not only what those pumps were doing there and what their technical specifications would have been to work sufficiently well, but also what the history of those pumps would have been like.

 

I also immediately realized the similarities between the cylinder and piston of a steam engine and that of a metal suction pump, not least because the Scottish engineer James Watt had patented his inventions for an improved steam engine in 1776 CE, only two years before the Endeavour set sail on its voyage around the world (1768-1771 CE). After having realized that, my investigation was easy sailing, so to speak, leading to the results explained above.

 

This is not the first time that model building has helped me to recognize important principles. More in general, I think that physical model building is an excellent training for doing science, both the natural and the social sciences. Much like a model of the Endeavour is meant to resemble the real thing as much as possible while it never is the real Endeavour, very similarly our academic models hopefully represent reality sufficiently well without ever being the reality that they represent.

 

More about that fascinating subject another time. Here, I would only like to remark that building models out of wood, metal, plastic, or whatever materials provides an excellent training for becoming a natural or social scientist, or so it seems to me. Computer modeling may never fulfil that job similarly well. With the decline of physical modeling today, are the younger generations therefore perhaps missing out on learning important skills for becoming good scientists?

 

A few literary sources

 

- Very short summary of the history of pumps

- informative article about the history of ship’s pumps: Charles Bendig: ‘Ships’ Pumps: From Antiquity to the Early Modern Era.’ Journal of Maritime Archaeology (2020) 15:185–207.