Model of Beam Pumping Engine

This model is not well known among the canon of models built in the works of Boulton & Watt of Birmingham, but perhaps deserves to be better known. It has the old-pattern wooden beam used by the company until approximately 1800, and drives a pump with what appears to be a counterweight attached to it, feeding into a round launder and then a rectangular wooden cistern, so the water can be circulated as the model works. The model speaks to Boulton & Watt's development of mine pumping engines for use in Cornwall and elsewhere, and also to the use of the beam pumping engines in other applications during the nineteenth century. It seems to be a pragmatic experimental model, most likely given the relatively simple pump arrangement to experiment with the working gear controlling passage of steam into the engine's cylinder.