Scottish Engine Featured on New Stamp

An 1810 winding engine from Old Farme Colliery, Rutherglen, is featured on one of a new set of postage stamps launched by Royal Mail.

The engine is one of only nine preserved Newcomen engines in the world and one of only two in Scotland. The Newcomen or 'atmospheric' engine was the first workable form of steam engine, pre-dating James Watt's double-acting steam engine by half a century. The engine worked by generating a vacuum inside a cylinder to pull the piston down.

The Farme Colliery engine worked for more than a century before being donated to the City of Glasgow. It is now on display at Summerlee Museum in Coatbridge where it is on long-term loan to North Lanarkshire Council Museums and Heritage.

Thomas Newcomen, the inventor of the engine, built his first known successful engine, the Dudley Castle engine 300 years ago, in 1712. Newcomen is celebrated in the new set of stamps commemorating 'Britons of Distinction'.