Bucket wheel colliery winding engines: a classic ‘intermediate technology’

One of the most important early applications of the concept of ‘intermediate technology’ can be found in the combination of Newcomen-type pumping engines and water wheels driving pairs of ropes for the winding of coal in the larger and deeper collieries in the Tyne and Wear basins of north-east England in the eighteenth century, before the practicalisation of rotative steam power enabled further technological change. This paper examines how two variants of this approach were used, the important role of the celebrated engineer John Smeaton, and why the continued use of this seemingly clumsy hybrid ‘bucket wheel’ technology was actually a rational and effective response to a demand that could not at the time been satisfied by any alternative.