Thomas Newcomen (Dartmouth, 1664 – London, 1729), a blacksmith and ironmonger, installs in 1712 at Dudley Castle (Staffordshire) the first practical atmospheric engine in history: a vertical cylinder where low-pressure steam raises a piston and condensation by cold-water injection pushes it back down, driving a mine-drainage pump via a beam. It is the first steam engine with real, sustained industrial application: more than a hundred were installed before Watt improved the design. Newcomen's engine consumed enormous amounts of coal because of its inefficiency (the cylinder cooled and reheated each cycle), but it solved the critical drainage problem in coal mines in Cornwall and Staffordshire. Watt developed his separate condenser precisely while repairing a Newcomen model in Glasgow.