Event: https://facebook.com/events/s/dartmouth-newcomen-steam-festi/2010805176223291/
Part of The Newcomen Steam Festival which is happening all over Dartmouth on Saturday 25 July 2026.
As part of the festival we are hosting 4 illustrated talks in the Flavel Arts Centre all about the invention of steam power and its application in Dartmouth and on the River Dart.
The Flavel Cafe will be open from 9.30am to 1pm
The Flavel Bar will be open from 12 noon to 1.15pm
10:30 11.30am Brunel’s Atmospheric Caper
Brunel’s Atmospheric Caper follows Isambard Kingdom Brunel as he backs one of the strangest railways ever built along the South Devon coast from Exeter to Newton Abbot and on to Plymouth.
Speaker: Jonathan Turner is Vice Chair and Trustee of Dartmouth Museum, Chair of the South West Maritime History Society, and a Trustee of the Flavel Arts Centre in Dartmouth.
11.30am 12.30pm The Engine that Changed the World
Why is Thomas Newcomen’s 1712 steam engine regarded as one of the most important inventions in history? This talk explains how Newcomen and his assistant, John Calley, created the world’s first successful commercial steam engine, making deep coal mining possible and laying the foundations of the Industrial Revolution.
Speaker: David Hulse is one of the pre-eminent model makers of our age, and his meticulously researched working models of eighteenth century atmospheric steam engines have gained international recognition.
13:30pm 14.30pm Paddle Steamer Kingswear Castle
Built in 1924 Kingswear Castle ran up and down the Dart between Dartmouth and Totnes until withdrawn in 1965. After two decades laying idle she was returned to service in 1985 based at the Historic Dockyard at Chatham running trips on the Rivers Medway and Thames. In 2013 she returned to the Dart on long term charter to the Dartmouth Steam Railway and River Boat Company. She has just completed a major rebuild.
Speaker: John Megoran: No-one knows more about the Kingswear Castle than John. A native of Weymouth, where paddle steamers still ran when he was a child, John returned Kingswear Castle to service in 1985.
14:30-15:30pm Thomas Newcomen:
The Dartmouth Ironmonger Who Changed the World
Thomas Newcomen’s great-grandfather was a Cambridge don and contemporary of Francis Bacon who brought modern education to Dartmouth, and the Newcomen family’s Nonconformist convictions often put them at odds with the town’s politics. Tutored near Kingsbridge, where he met his future wife Hannah, Thomas inherited properties in Dartmouth and Kingswear and later acquired others in Bovey Tracey and Ilsington.
Speaker: James Greener is an authority on the life and work of Thomas Newcomen and is changing the way we think about him. He combines an international career in automotive technology and renewable energy with a long-standing passion for the history of steam power.
ALL talks are free no booking necessary however auditorium capacity is 172.
Thomas Newman Steam Festival, Dartmouth,
Devon : Steam Heritage