Thomas Savery, an English engineer, patented the first commercially used steam-powered device, a pump designed to raise water from mines by creating a vacuum with condensing steam. The patent, filed in London, described an 'engine to raise water by fire,' which used steam pressure and condensation to lift water. Savery's pump, though limited in its lifting capacity, was the first practical application of steam power for industry.

Savery's pump is a landmark in the Industrial Revolution, a period that poets of the Romantic era, like William Blake, viewed with ambivalence. His invention, which enabled deeper mining, fueled the economic and social transformations that poets like Blake critiqued in their works, making it a symbol of both progress and its discontents.