The rotative engine turns a shaft
Boulton and Watt patented the sun-and-planet gear and began supplying engines that produced continuous rotary motion rather than a reciprocating pump stroke. This is the change that let steam drive a mill, and Boulton's commercial reasoning was explicit: the pumping market was finite, the market for turning machinery was not.
Historical — it happened, and the record is settled.
Subjects
- The steam engine · technology · United Kingdom · not located
- Boulton and Watt · company · United Kingdom · not located
- The British textile industry · industry sector · United Kingdom · not located
Evidence
Partly verified — Core facts are sourced; some optional detail is deliberately absent.
Watt's 1769 patent for lessening the consumption of steam and fuel in fire engines, and the Act of 1775 extending it
Supports the separate-condenser priority date, the extension of the monopoly to 1800, and the Boulton and Watt licensing model. V55 verification basis: NOT consulted — legislation.gov.uk is blocked from this session. The patent number and the regnal citation of the extending Act are deliberately omitted rather than reconstructed from memory.
UK patent roll and Public General Acts · 1769; extended 1775 · Partly verified
James Watt's specification of 1769 for a method of lessening the consumption of steam and fuel in fire engines; extended by private Act of Parliament in 1775 to run to 1800
Recorded on The steam engine
- Parliament bans the use of printed calicoes
- Hargreaves devises the spinning jenny
- Watt patents the separate condenser
- Boulton and Watt form their partnership
- Crompton completes the spinning mule
- The rotative engine turns a shaft
- Cartwright patents the power loom
- Arkwright's patents are overturned
- The Great Exhibition
Related
Related because they share a subject in the Atlas — never because the text looks similar.
- The Great Exhibition · 1 May – October 1851
- Cartwright patents the power loom · 1785
- Arkwright's patents are overturned · 1785
- Crompton completes the spinning mule · 1779
- Boulton and Watt form their partnership · 1775
- Watt patents the separate condenser · 1769
- Hargreaves devises the spinning jenny · c. 1764
- Parliament bans the use of printed calicoes · 1721