Water Pressure Engine

A reciprocating engine driven not by steam but by a column of water under pressure, brought down a pipe from a height to a cylinder whose piston works the pump rods; the lead miner's engine where water was plentiful and coal dear.

Historical usage

Engines driven by a head of water were probably first used in the mines of central Germany; Robert Fludd described one after visiting Germany about 1600, and water-column engines pumped in the German mining districts from the middle of the 18th century. The British engine began in the northern Pennines. William Westgarth of Coalcleugh in Northumberland invented a new hydraulic engine for draining mines and erected one in 1765 for a lead mine of Sir Walter Blackett's at Coalcleugh; he sent a model to the Society of Arts, John Smeaton wrote a strong recommendation of it in 1769, the Society gave Westgarth fifty guineas, and in 1787 Smeaton drew up the drawings and description for which the Society gave him its silver medal. In Derbyshire Richard Trevithick built a water pressure engine for the Alport mines near Bakewell in 1803, placed at depth in Crash Purse Shaft to drain Black Shale Pitts and Pienet Nest Vein to eight fathoms; it was moved to Old Engine Shaft about 1813, and seven hydraulic pumping engines were installed in the Alport orefield between 1803 and 1851, the last of them a direct-acting engine of 1842 by J. Darlington with a cylinder fifty inches across and a ten-foot stroke. In the 19th century the same principle drove the water engines of London, supplied at pressures of up to 800 pounds to the square inch by the London Hydraulic Power Company for cranes, lifts and theatre stages, and they held on after electric motors came because they would run quiet, cheap and safe in the damp.

How it worked

Water is let down a pipe from a reservoir or a high level into a cylinder, where it drives a piston exactly as steam does, and is then discharged at the engine's own level, usually into an adit that carries it away; the piston's rod works the pump through a beam or directly. Because water will not compress, the valve gear is harder to make than a steam engine's: a valve shut too fast throws the whole column against the pipe, which can burst it, so the valves are made to close slowly, some engines carried a second small engine only to work them, and air vessels on the pipe took up the shock. The water-column engine is the largest form, directly acting, with pistons of different sizes on one axle. The engine's great merit underground is that it does not care about water: it runs submerged.

Why it was used

A lead mine in the Pennine dales had no coal and no road to bring it, but it had water above it in the fells and an adit below it to take water away. A water pressure engine turned that head into pumping power at the bottom of the shaft, where no waterwheel could go, and ran as long as the burn did.

Risks & limitations

It needs a head of water and a drain below the engine, so it suits a hillside mine with an adit and nothing else. The valve gear is delicate, the shock of water hammer is always waiting, and in a dry summer the engine stops with the stream. Its power is set by the head and the size of the cylinder, and it could not be moved like a portable steam engine.

Regional variation

Hydraulic engine in the Northumberland records of Westgarth's day and in the Derbyshire Historic Environment Record; water pressure engine in Trevithick's papers and the Alport accounts; water engine and water motor for the small London and domestic machines; water-column engine for the directly acting German type. The lead dales of Northumberland, Durham and Derbyshire were its British home.

Related terminology

Atmospheric Engine, Beam Engine, Cornish Engine, Flat Rods, Hydraulic Mining, Leat, Pelton Wheel, Pumping Engine, Sough, Waterwheel

Mines associated with this term

5 examples chosen from 14 linked records — the term page is not an index.

• Meliden Lead Mines — Denbighshire (well documented example)
  Named in this record’s history: “…Shaft was sunk between 1842 and 1845 and initially fitted with a hydraulic engine, replaced in 1860 by a 100-inch Cornish pumping engine. By 1874 the…”
• Allenheads Mines — Northumberland (well documented example)
  Named twice in this record, first in the workings: “…and Blackett veins. The mine's sawmill housed an Armstrong Whitworth hydraulic engine, one of several hydraulic engines installed on site, whose drawings…”
• Broadmeadow Lead Mine — Derbyshire (well documented example)
  Named in this record’s history: “…river, via raised launders, to the Broadmeadow engine shaft, where a hydraulic engine chamber lies deep underground. A plan of the entrance and shaft, the…”
• Cambrian Quarry — Wrexham (well documented example)
  Named in this record’s history: “…slate commercially and spent £22,000 on tramways, an incline, a water engine and buildings; Buddlepit dates major working at Martin's quarry, the…”
• Gnoll Colliery — Neath Port Talbot (well documented example)
  Named in this record’s history: “…the water out of his shafts and sinking pits, saving the charges of water engines, and with 'sailing wagons' for cheap carriage. A plan of about 1720…”

Disasters associated with this term

Included only where MineArchive's own research gives a reasonable evidential basis, with the nature of the relationship stated — not every disaster where this term might plausibly apply.

• Leadhills (Minehill) suffocation, 1817 (contextual relationship)
  Named in this record’s rescue and recovery: “…the signal too soon — and was thrown into the landing-box of the water engine at the 50 fathom level, which sent that water 40 fathoms down the…”

Sources

1. (primary) MDR3840: Old Engine Shaft and engine (site of), Harthill — Derbyshire Historic Environment Record
2. (primary) Water pressure engine: Mr William Westgarth's statical hydraulic engine, 1769 (Smeaton drawings, 1787) — Royal Society
3. (secondary) Alport Mine — Grace's Guide
4. (secondary) Water engine — Wikipedia

Record created: 16 October 2026 · Last researched: 16 October 2026